Purpose One of the main theories regarding the relationship between government expenditure and gross domestic product (GDP) is Wagner's law. This law was developed in the late-19th century by Adolph Wagner (1835-1917), a prominent German economist, and depicts that an increase in government...

Public investment has shown increasing trends both in nominal and as a share of GDP over years in Ethiopia. These upsurges in public investment are believed to be due to factors that have visible impact on the fiscal posture of the country. To investigate the validity of Wagner's law in Ethiopia;...

This study evaluates the impact of expenditure compositions on economic growth in Afghanistan. The data was collected from the World Bank and Ministry of Finance using a period of 2004 to 2019. The gross domestic product was stated as dependent variable and public expenditure compositions were...

This study tests Wagner's law in Nigeria in both the short and long-run using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique of estimation and controlling for structural breaks between the periods 1981-2016. Results showed that both in the short and long-run, evidence pointed to a negative...

This research paper analyses the relationship between gross domestic product and public expenditures in nominal terms. The analysis is being done by using the standard Peacock-Wiseman specification of the Wagner's law and provides the results for the Visegrád Four countries, i.e. the Czech...

Policy ambiguity in the form of non-directional and non-purposeful use of state resources has made sustainable growth outcomes a mirage in Nigeria. Recent economic crisis prompted the debate on how increased government spending induces sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. This paper examines...

The economy of Ghana profiles a trajectory of increasing government expenditure at the backdrop of an inconsistent growth in real GDP. Thus, this study explores the causal relationship between real economic growth and real government expenditure in Ghana between the period 1960 to 2017. The...

In Nigeria, the government activities vis-à-vis public expenditure has grown rapidly both in absolute, relative and as a share of GDP over the years. These growths in government expenditure have been due to certain factors which are believed to have significant effect on the fiscal operation of...

This paper carries out a critical reappraisal of the two contending theories purporting to explain long-run government spending: Wagner's Law and different variants of the ratchet effect. We analyze data spanning from the early 19th century until the present day in Sweden and the United Kingdom....

Public choice economics, like most economics, typically assigns only a small role to various forms of talk between individuals. By contrast, throughout Richard Wagner's oeuvre, there is an undercurrent of talk about talk. This essay argues that talk matters because of two key assumptions in...

This study examines the relationship between government expenditure, economic growth and poverty reduction in Nigeria using time series data over the period 1980-2013. Employing modern time series econometric techniques such as unit root tests, bound test co-integration approach and error...

In this paper, we analyze the development of public consumption expenditure in Austria starting in the 1940s. We focus our attention on two hypotheses as to why public consumption expenditure has been constantly increasing: Wagner's law and Baumol's cost disease. The estimated income elasticity...

We test several hypotheses concerning the growth of public expenditure by the Austrian monarchy between 1870 and 1913 in relation to Wagner's law, as well as the impact of increasing public indebtedness and the expanding role of the Imperial Council towards the end of the analyzed period, using...

Welfare services are an important part of the Nordic welfare states both financially and for welfare state redistribution. Baumol's cost disease, Wagner's law, and population ageing are often said to bring challenges for the future provision of welfare services. While none of the three poses an...

This paper seeks to find the causal relationship between government size and economic growth and attempts to find out whether there is evidence in support of Wagner's Law or not in Pakistan. For this purpose, the annual time series data are used to study the relationship between the economic...

The empirical and theoretical literature on long-term relationships in public finance is dominated by two approaches: Fiscal sustainability and Wagner's law of an increasing state activity. In this paper, we argue that these two relationships should be analyzed simultaneously and not separately....