There is scant empirical economic research regarding the way that Latin American governments efficiently allocate their spending across different functions to achieve higher growth. While most papers restrict their analysis to the size of government, much less is known about the composition of...

This article examines the effect of government consumption on economic growth in 23 Latin American countries over the years 1974-2003. Employing the Armey Curve, we show that the typical Latin American government is spending beyond the optimal point. Using panel data and a fixed effects (FE)...