The issue of whether the public sector enhances or retards long-run economic growth has been debated passionately in recent years. In this paper we use meta-analysis to shed light on the issue. A sample of 93 published studies, yielding 123 meta-observations, is used to examine the robustness of...

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between austerity measures and economic growth. We propose a general equilibrium model where (i) agents have recursive preferences; (ii ) economic growth is endogenously driven by investments in R&D; (iii) the government is...

Is it politically feasible for governments to engineer endogenous growth? This paper illustrates two reasonable political decision mechanisms by which fiscal policy generates endogenous growth with a single accumulable factor, under a constant returns to scale production technology, and without...

This paper illustrates two reasonable political decision mechanisms by which fiscal policy generates endogenous growth under a constant returns to scale production technology, absent externalities. Based on the dynamics induced by various policy choices, we demonstrate that policies that...

We reexamine the properties of optimal fiscal policy and their implications for implementable capital accumulation. The setup is a standard endogenous growth model with public production services, augmented by elastic labor supply. We show that, when a benevolent government chooses a distorting...

We focus on the link between political instability due to uncertain electoral outcomes and economic growth, through the impact on a government's decisions on how to allocate government expenditure between public consumption and investment. Using an endogenous growth model with partisan electoral...