Firms that lie far behind the technological frontier have the most to gain from imitating the technology or management practices of others. That some firms converge relatively slowly to the productivity frontier suggests the existence of factors that cause them to underinvest in their...

This paper considers the effects of complementarity in private production between private and public inputs on optimal fiscal policy under the objective of growth maximization. Using an endogenous growth model with public finance and CES technology, it derives two central results. First, it...

This paper assesses the merits of using business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth-enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper demonstrates...

We examine the long-run GDP impacts of changes in total government expenditure and in the shares of different spending categories for a sample of OECD countries since the 1970s, taking account of methods of financing expenditure changes and possible endogenous relationships. We provide more...

This paper assesses the merits of using surveys of business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth-enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper...

The 'compensation' and 'efficiency' hypotheses propose that globalization affects both the total, and composition of, public expenditures in different ways. Under the former, economic insecurity leads to expanding public sectors and social expenditures, whereas under the efficiency hypothesis,...

This paper evaluates the trade-off between growth and welfare maximization from two perspectives. Firstly, it synthesizes and extends endogenous growth models with public finance to compare growth and welfare maximizing tax rates. Secondly, it examines the distinct model outcomes in terms of...

Endogenous growth models, such as Barro (1990), predict that government expenditure and taxation will have both temporary and permanent effects on growth. We test this prediction using panels of annual and period-averaged data for OECD countries during 1970-95, isolating long-run from short-run...