{"title":"Government expenditure and economic growth: A heterogeneous-agents approach","authors":"Ryo Arawatari , Takeo Hori , Kazuo Mino","doi":"10.1016/j.jmacro.2022.103486","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>This study examines the relationship between productive government expenditures and economic growth. An R&D-based model of </span>endogenous growth is used, in which agents have heterogeneous entrepreneurial abilities. We show that if the number of high-ability entrepreneurs is non-negligible, then the relationship between the government expenditure/GDP ratio and the economic growth rate is depicted by an inverted U-shaped curve with a flat top. The flat top of the curve indicates that changes in the size of the government expenditures have a limited impact on growth. We calibrate the model using U.S. data and empirically confirm our theoretical predictions. The theoretical and numerical results suggest that the debate on the relationship between the size of the government and economic growth may be off the mark unless the size of the government is extremely large or small.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47863,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Macroeconomics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 103486"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Macroeconomics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070422000799","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between productive government expenditures and economic growth. An R&D-based model of endogenous growth is used, in which agents have heterogeneous entrepreneurial abilities. We show that if the number of high-ability entrepreneurs is non-negligible, then the relationship between the government expenditure/GDP ratio and the economic growth rate is depicted by an inverted U-shaped curve with a flat top. The flat top of the curve indicates that changes in the size of the government expenditures have a limited impact on growth. We calibrate the model using U.S. data and empirically confirm our theoretical predictions. The theoretical and numerical results suggest that the debate on the relationship between the size of the government and economic growth may be off the mark unless the size of the government is extremely large or small.
期刊介绍:
Since its inception in 1979, the Journal of Macroeconomics has published theoretical and empirical articles that span the entire range of macroeconomics and monetary economics. More specifically, the editors encourage the submission of high quality papers that are concerned with the theoretical or empirical aspects of the following broadly defined topics: economic growth, economic fluctuations, the effects of monetary and fiscal policy, the political aspects of macroeconomics, exchange rate determination and other elements of open economy macroeconomics, the macroeconomics of income inequality, and macroeconomic forecasting.