RIS ID
14918
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyse government expenditure in Iran using annual time series data for the period 1963-2000. Various theories of the size of government are reviewed and a distinction is made between economic/structural determinants and institutional determinants. Categorising the theories of government expenditure in this way suggests the application of non-nested tests as a mechanism whereby the relative importance of the two broad theoretical categories can be determined. The empirical results, indicating "double rejection", reveal that neither the economic/structural determinants nor the institutional determinants alone are sufficient to explain government expenditure in Iran. A comprehensive, incorporating explanatory variables from both models provides a robust explanation of the data. This paper presents the first empirical estimates of the own-price elasticity of the demand, and income elasticity of the demand, for current government expenditures in Iran.
Publication Details
This article originally published as Doessel, D.P. and Valadkhani, A., Theory and Econometric Evidence Explaining Public Expenditure: The Case of Iran, The Middle East Business and Economic Review, 15(2), 2003, 14-25.