Sizing the Government

De Witte, Kristof and Moesen, Wim (2009): Sizing the Government.

Abstract

Is there such a thing as an optimal government size? We investigate by the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) the so-called `Armey curve' which claims an inverted U-shaped relationship between government size and economic performance. The DEA scores are linked to control variables as initial per capita income, openness, population density, urbanization, country size and family size. For 23 OECD-countries we estimate the country specific efficiency scores, which reveal the extent to which a country uses excess public resources to achieve the observed growth rate of GDP.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis, Government size, Public sector performance, Armey-curve
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General; H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H21 - Efficiency ; Optimal Taxation

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