This paper provides empirical evidence showing that smaller countries tend to have more volatile government consumption for a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000. The analysis also shows that country size is negatively related to the discretionary part of government consumption and to the...

Recent developments in macroeconomic policy, both in terms of theory and practice, have elevated monetary policy while fiscal policy has been downgraded. The latter is rarely mentioned in policy discussion, apart from arguing to place limits on budget deficits and fiscal variables. This paper...