Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2002-03-21
Revision-Date: 2003-04-23
Number: 02-028/3
Author-Name: Peter Nijkamp
Author-Email: pnijkamp@feweb.vu.nl
Author-Workplace-Name: Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam
Author-Name: Jacques Poot, Victoria
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Wellington, New Zealand
Title: Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Fiscal Policies on Long-Run Growth
Abstract: The issue of whether the public sector enhances or retards long-run economic growth has been debated passionately in recent years. In this paper we use meta-analysis to shed light on the issue. A sample of 93 published studies, yielding 123 meta-observations, is used to examine the robustness of the evidence regarding the impact of fiscal policy on growth. We focus on five fiscal policy areas: general government consumption, tax rates, education expenditure, defence, and public infrastructure. Several meta-analytical techniques are applied, including frequency tabulation, logit analysis and rough set analysis. On  balance, the evidence for a positive impact of policy on growth is rather weak, but the commonly identified importance of education and infrastructure is confirmed. The results are sensitive to several research design parameters. Cross-section studies are more likely to suggest a detrimental effect of "big government" on growth than studies using panel data, but they are unlikely to be able to correctly identify the growth impact of infrastructure. The probability that a study detects a significantly positive effect of public infrastructure on growth is the greater, the longer the time span of data used in the econometric analysis.
Classification-JEL: C49; O23.
Keywords: endogenous growth; fiscal policy; meta-analysis; rough set analysis.
File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/02028.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 171960 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20020028