Using time-series techniques and panels data, the paper analyses for the EU countries in the period 1970-2009 the existence and shape of the “BARS curve” (Barro, Armey, Rahn, and Scully), connecting the size of Government (measured by the share of public expenditure on GDP) to the rate of...

An examination of how increased turnover among legislators in the fifty U.S. states affects fiscal policy and economic growth finds that it makes legislators short-sighted. Turnover increases the size of government by increasing the shares of both total spending and taxes in income. In...

Despite decades of experience and research, the effects of minimum wage legislation (MWL) on long-run economic performance have rarely been studied since Stigler’s (1946) classic exposition about the shortcomings of MWL. In this study, we use a novel method to estimate the magnitude and...

This paper uses data from Japan to ascertain the determinants of government information disclosures by considering the role of special interest groups and government size. A IV-Tobit model is employed to control for endogeneity bias of government size. The major findings are as follows: (1)...

This paper analyses whether large governments in Europe reflect efficient responses to a changing social and economic environment (‘welfare economic view’) as opposed to wasteful spending (‘public choice view’). To this end, the effect of government size on subjective well-being is...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the size of the government in 12 OECD countries. Data are gathered from Penn Tables. Clustered robust OLS estimation techniques have been used. Also Panel estimation techniques have been applied, FE and RE estimation. The functional form is quadratic is...

Is there such a thing as an optimal government size? We investigate by the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) the so-called `Armey curve' which claims an inverted U-shaped relationship between government size and economic performance. The DEA scores are linked to control variables as...

This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996 to examine how the relationship between government size and life satisfaction changes. The major findings are: (1) Government size has a detrimental effect on life satisfaction when government size impedes economic growth...

Empirical results through a fixed effects regression model show that government size has a negative effect on growth mainly through hampering capital accumulation. When a sample is divided into OECD and non-OECD countries, the negative effect of government size on capital accumulation persists...

This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996 to examine how the relationship between government size and life satisfaction changes. The major findings are: (1) Government size has a detrimental effect on life satisfaction when government size impedes economic growth...