We use US county level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the extent of government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. We find that increases in federal, state and local government employments are all negatively...

This paper explores the factors that contribute to long-run economic growth in U.S. metropolitan areas, with particular attention given to government finance variables. Unlike previous work that examines only a sub-sample of the largest areas, this paper uses a new comprehensive data set for all...

Why has government grown in so many countries during the twentieth century? We present a simple model of political competition and show how different sources of the growth of government have different effects on the amount and structure of taxes, spending, and regulatory programs undertaken by...