Is Government Expenditure Volatility Harmful for Growth? A Cross-Country Study

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to analyse the relationship between government expenditure volatility and long-run growth. Using cross-country panel data from 1970 to 2000, the paper finds that countries with higher government expenditure business-cycle volatility have lower growth, even after controlling for other country-specific growth correlates such as investment, government expenditure, human capital, population growth and output volatility. This relation is robust to different measures of business cycles. Moreover, considering different subsamples, the paper finds that while government volatility significantly affects long-run growth for developing countries, it has a small effect for OECD countries.