The existing empirical literature on the US federal revenue-expenditure nexus has had mixed findings. Amongst those papers presenting evidence in favor of causation running from taxes to expenditures, support for the conventional, Friedman-type tax-spend hypothesis is nearly ubiquitous. Evidence...

The present paper investigates the effectiveness of R&D subsidies given to start-ups. Taking an aggregate view rather than evaluating a single program, we estimate the impact of R&D subsidies on start-ups’ employment growth and their patent output. A unique data set on start-ups in the East...

What do we know about the output effects of fiscal policy in low income countries (LICs)? There are very few empirical studies on the subject. This paper fills this gap by estimating the output effects of government spending shocks in LICs. Our analysis-based on the local projection method-finds...

This paper studies whether changes in the composition of public spending affect the macroeconomic consequences of fiscal consolidations. Based on a sample of 44 developing countries and 26 advanced economies during 1980-2019, results show that while fiscal consolidations tend to be on average,...

We conduct a hierarchical meta-regression analysis to review 87 empirical studies that report 769 estimates for the effects of government size on economic growth. We follow best-practice recommendations for meta-analysis of economics research, and address issues of publication selection bias and...

We conduct a hierarchical meta-regression analysis to review 87 empirical studies that report 769 estimates for the effects of government size on economic growth. We follow best-practice recommendations for meta-analysis of economics research and address issues of publication selection bias and...

In 2009, Germany invested 15.4 Billion Euro in infrastructure to avert the looming recession. In this study, we evaluate whether the German stimulus program was successful in limiting the impact of the crisis on the job market. We exploit exogenous cross-sectional variation to identify the...

Does it matter for fiscal consolidation programs to be fair in order to be successful? This question has never been empirically addressed despite its profound importance especially since many developed countries have embarked on fiscal consolidation programs, which in many cases have led to...

Does it matter for the success of fiscal consolidation programmes that they are fair? This question has never been empirically addressed despite its profound importance especially since many developed countries have embarked on fiscal consolidation programmes, which in many cases have led to...

This paper investigates the performance and efficiency of the public sector in 74 countries worldwide for the years 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000. Similar to what is done in Afonso / Schuhknecht / Tanzi (2005, Public Choice), I calculate performance measures for various fields of government policy,...