La calidad del gasto público y su influencia en el desarrollo económico: una validación empírica para los países de la OCDE 1970-2005.

The assessment on the relevance of public spending on economic growth has deserved an important attention in the economic literature. However its empirical approach by testing the effects by an aggregate production function may mislead the results since the composition of public expenditure, more than its level, is crucial. In this paper, after surveying of the current state of affairs on the topic, we estimate for the OECD countries, and a period which extends from 1970 to 2005, a panel data regression on the level of growth and its rate, and on some proxy for the income inequality. We take as regressors the detailed composition of public expenditure according to functional categories (health, education, economic services…) and its economic classification (public consumption versus transfers –as a proxy of in-kind versus money transfers–; public production –chapter 1– against purchases and contracting out –chapter 2–, current versus capital expenditure).