We revisit Wagner's law of increasing state expenditure by function of government expenditure. Using data of 14 European countries between 1996 and 2013, we apply panel data and SUR methods to assess public expenditure-income elasticities. We find that some functions of government spending for a...

Wagner’s Law is the first model of public spending in the history of public finance. The aim of this study is to assess its empirical evidence in Italy for the period 1960-2008 at a disaggregated level, using a time series approach. After a brief introduction, a survey of the economic...

Declining inflation rates might have negative consequences for tax revenues. Phenomena like the inflationary bracket creep in a progressive income tax system do not work any longer. With this background the paper analyzes the extent of fiscal drag for OECD countries since 1965. Some...