Government Consumption Volatility and the Size of Nations

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between the volatility of government consumption and country size. Using a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000 the main findings of our empirical analysis suggest that: 1) smaller countries have more volatile non-discretionary and discretionary...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Furceri, Davide
Other Authors: Poplawski Ribeiro, Marcos
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Paris OECD Publishing 2009
Series:OECD Economics Department Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OECD Books and Papers - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:The aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between the volatility of government consumption and country size. Using a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000 the main findings of our empirical analysis suggest that: 1) smaller countries have more volatile non-discretionary and discretionary government consumption, and also a more volatile government size; 2) the relation between government spending volatility and the size of a country is more negative for more volatile economies; 3) the relation between government consumption volatility and country size is more negative for functions of government spending that are characterized by a high level on non-rivality. The results are robust to different time and country samples, different econometric techniques and to several sets of control variables
Physical Description:35 p. 21 x 29.7cm