The paper investigates the issue in the case of Tunisia for which a 1996 World Bank published report recommended shrinking the size of its government on the basis of conclusions from cross-country growth studies. Analysis of the causal impact of government size on growth in this country proves...

The size of government consumption relative to national output is examined to see if it is optimal in five Gulf countries of the Middle East. We follow the methodology suggested in Barro (1990) and Karras (1996, 1997) and examine the marginal productivity of government consumption. The "Barro...