Government Expenditure, Efficiency and Economic Growth: A Panel Analysis of Sub Saharan African Low Income Countries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61538/ajer.v5i2.426Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of government expenditure and efficiency on economic growth of Sub Saharan African low income countries. The paper uses a panel data of 25 Sub-Saharan African low income countries spanning from 2002 – 2015 which are obtained from World Development Indicators (WDI) database. The paper executes panel unit root tests by using ImPesaran-Shin and Fisher ADF tests. The paper also uses Pedroni test to accomplish panel cointegration tests. Finally Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) is applied to answer the two research questions. The results demonstrate that increasing government expenditure accelerates economic growth of low income countries in Sub Saharan Africa. However, when government expenditure is interacted with government efficiency we find no evidence for government efficiency to boost the impacts of government expenditure on economic growth. Fiscal policy makers in Sub Saharan African low income region should consider the rationale for using their spending to accelerate economic growth.References
Afonso, A. et al., 2005. Quality of Public Finance, WP No. 438, European Central Bank, Frankfurt.
Afonso, A., Schuknecht, L. & Tanzi, V., 2008. Income Distribution Determinants and Public Spending Efficiency, WP No. 861, European Central Bank, Frankfurt.
Angelopoulos, K., Philippopoulos, A. & Tsionas, E., 2008. Does Public Sector Efficiency
Matter? Revisiting the Relation Between Fiscal Size and Economic Growth in a World
Sample. , 137, pp.245–278.
Asiedu, E., 2002. On the Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment to Developing Countries : Is Africa Different? World Development, 30(1), pp.107–119. Asiedu, E., 2004. Policy Reform and Foreign Direct Investment in Africa : Absolute Progress but Relative Decline. Development Policy Review, 22, pp.41–48.
Avkiran, N., 2006. Productivity Analysis in the Service Sector with Data Envelopment Analysis Third Edit., QLD 4072, Australia: UQ Business School, The University of Queensland.
Baltagi, B.H., 2005. Econometric Analysis of Panel Data Third Edit., West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, England.
Baltagi, B.H. & Kao, C., 2000. Nonstationary Panels , Cointegration in Panels and Dynamic
Panels : A Survey, New York, USA.
Barrios, S. & Schaechter, A., 2008. The quality of public finance and economic growth, Economic Papers 337, European Commission, Brussels.
Barro, R.J. & Sala-i-Martin, X., 2004. Economic Growth Second Edi., London, England: The MIT Press, London (UK).
Bassanini, A. & Scarpetta, S., 2001. The Driving Forces of Economic Growth: Panel Data Evidence for the OECD Counttries. OECD EconomicStudies, II(33).
Beraldo, S., Montolio, D. & Turati, G., 2009. Healthy , educated and wealthy : A primer on the impact of public and private welfare expenditures on economic growth. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 38, pp.946–956.
Bleaney, M., Gemmell, N. & Kneller, R., 2001. Testing the endogenous growth model: public expenditure, taxation, and growth over the long run. Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économique, 34(1), pp.36–57.
Bojanic, A.N., 2013. The Composition of Government Expenditures and Economic Growth in Bolivia. Latin American Journal of Economics, 50(1), pp.83–105.
Buchanan, B.G., Le, Q. V & Rishi, M., 2012. International Review of Financial Analysis Foreign direct investment and institutional quality : Some empirical evidence. International Review of Financial Analysis, 21(24), pp.81–89.
Butkiewicz, J.L. & Yanikkaya, H., 2011. Institutions and the impact of government spending on growth. Journal of Applied Economics, 14(2), pp.319–341.
Cakerri, L., Petanaj, M. & Muharemi, O., 2014. The Effect of Government Expenditures on Economic Growth: The case of Albania. European Journal of Social Sciences, 2(1), pp.242–253.
Carter, J., Craigwell, R. & Lowe, S., 2013. Government Expenditure and Economic Growth in a
Small Open Economy : A Disaggregated Approach. , pp.1–28.
Chang, H., Huang, B. & Wei, C., 2011. Military expenditure and economic growth across different groups : A dynamic panel Granger-causality approach. Economic Modelling, 28, pp.2416–2423.
Chen, P.F., Lee, C.C. & Chiu, Y. Bin, 2014. The nexus between defense expenditure and economic growth: New global evidence. Economic Modelling, 36, pp.474–483.
Clark, T.S. & Linzer, D.A., 2012. Should I Use Fixed or Random Effects ? , pp.1–34.
Drukker, D.M., 2010. Generalized method of moments ( GMM ) estimation in Stata 11. Dunne, P., Smith, R. & Willenbockel, D., 2004. Models of Military Expenditure and Growth : A Critical Review. In American Economic Association/ASSA Annual Meetings. Atlanta, pp. 1– 19.
Dunne, P., Smith, R. & Willenbockel, D., 2001. Theoretical and Econometric Issues in Analysing the Military Expenditure-Growth Nexus. In Sixth Annual Conference on Econometric Modelling for Africa. Pretoria, pp. 1–20.
Facchini, F. & Melki, M., 2013. Efficient government size: France in the 20th century. European Journal of Political Economy, 31, pp.1–14.
Gazdar, K. & Cherif, M., 2015. Institutions and the finance-growth nexus: Empirical evidence from MENA countries. Borsa Istanbul Review, 15(3), pp.137–160. Available at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bir.2015.06.001.
Ghura, D. & Hadjimichael, M., 1995. Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, WP/95/136, International Monetary Fund.
Gisore, N. et al., 2014. Growth in East Africa : A Disaggregated Model. European Journal ofBusiness and Social Sciences, 3(8), pp.289–304.
Glaeser, E.L. et al., 2004. Do Institutions Cause Growth? Journal of Economic Growth, 9(3), pp.271–303.
Globerman, S. & Shapiro, D., 2002. Global Foreign Direct Investment Flows : The Role of Governance Infrastructure. World Development, Vol. 30(11), pp.1899–1919.
Gopalan, S. & Rajan, R.S., 2016. Has Foreign Aid Been Effective in the Water Supply and
Sanitation Sector ? Evidence from Panel Data. World Development, 85, pp.84–104.
Gui-Diby, S.L., 2014. Impact of foreign direct investments on economic growth in Africa: Evidence from three decades of panel data analyses. Research in Economics, 68(3), pp.248– 256.
Gujarati, D.N. & Porter, D.C., 2005. Basic Econometrics Fifth Edit., New York, USA: McGrawHill/Irwin New York, USA.
Han, C. & Phillips, P.C.B., 2010. GMM Estimation for Dynamic Panels with Fixed Effects and Strong Instruments at Unity. Econometric Theory, pp.119–151.
Hauner, D. & Kyobe, A., 2010. Determinants of government efficiency. World Development, 38, pp.1527–1542.
Himmelberg, C.P., Hubbard, R.G. & Palia, D.N., 1999. Understanding the Determinants of Managerial Ownership and the link between ownership and performance. Journal of Financial Economics, 53, pp.1–46.
Hisamoglu, E., 2014. EU membership, institutions and growth: The case of Turkey. Economic Modelling, 38(August 1999), pp.211–219.
Hodgson, G.M., 2009. Institutional Economics into the Twenty-First Century*. Studi e Note de Economia, XIV(1), pp.3–26.
Hodgson, G.M., 2006. Institutions, Recessions and Recovery in the Transitional Economies. Journal of Economic Issues, XL(4), pp.875–894.
Hsiao, C., 2003. Analysis of Panel Data Second Edi., Cambridge University Press New York, USA.
Kapunda, S.M. & Topera, J.S., 2013. Public Expenditure Composistion and Economic Growth in
Tanzania : Socio-economic Policy Implications. Asian-African Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Vol. 13(1), pp.61–70.
Kollias, C., Manolas, G. & Paleologou, S.-M., 2004. Defence expenditure and economic growth in the European Union. Journal of Policy Modeling, 26, pp.553–569.
Kweka, J.P. & Morrissey, O., 1996. Government Spending and Economic Growth in Tanzania , 1965-1996. , (Credit Research Paper no. 00/6).
Law, S.H., Azman-Saini, W.N.W. & Ibrahim, M.H., 2013. Institutional quality thresholds and the finance - Growth nexus. Journal of Banking and Finance, 37(12), pp.5373–5381.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.03.011.
Law, S.H. & Habibullah, M.S., 2006. Financial Development, Institutional Quality and Economic Performance in East Asian Economies. Review of Applied Economics, 2(2), pp.201–216.
Liu, W. & Hsu, C., 2006. The role of financial development in economic growth: The experiences of Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Journal of Asian Economics, 17, pp.667–690.
Loizides, J. & Vamvoukas, G., 2005. Government Expenditure and Economic Growth: Evidence from Trivariate Causality Testing. Applied Journal of Economics, VIII(1), pp.125–152.
Macek, R. & Janků, J., 2015. The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Economic Growth Depending on Institutional Conditions, VSB-Technical University, Ostrava.
Maddala, G.. S., 1999. On the Use of Panel Data Methods with Cross-Country Data. Annales
D’economie et de Statistidue.
Mandl, U., Dierx, A. & Ilzkovitz, F., 2008. The effectiveness and efficiency of public spending, Wconomic Papers 301, European Commission, Brussels.
Ndambiri, H.K. et al., 2012. Determinants of Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Panel Approach. International Journal of Economics and Management Sciences, 2(2), pp.18–24.
Nell, C. & Zimmermann, S., 2011. Summary Based on Chapter 12 of Baltagi : Panel Unit Root Tests. , pp.1–10.
Nurudeen, A. & Usman, A., 2010. Government Expenditure And Economic Growth In Nigeria ,
-2008 : A Disaggregated Analysis. Business and Economics Journal, 2010, pp.1–11.
Ogundipe, A., Ojeaga, P. & Ogundipe, O., 2014. Is Aid Really Dead? Evidence from Sub-
Saharan Africa. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, Vol 4 No 1.
Parker, D. & Kirkpatrick, C., 2012. Measuring Regulatory Performance; The Economic Impact of Regulatory Policy: A Literature Review of Quantitative Evidence, Expert Paper No 3, OECD.
Prasetyo, A.D. & Zuhdi, U., 2013. The Government Expenditure Efficiency towards the Human Development. Procedia Economics and Finance, 5, pp.615–622.
Radaelli, C. & Francesco, F., 2010. Better Regulation for Growth, The World Bank Group, Washington D.C.
Rahmayanti, Y. & Horn, T., 2010. Expenditure Efficiency and the Optimal Size of Government in Developing Countries, Discussio Paper 10-20, Osaka.
Rasiah, R., 2011. The Role of Institutions and Linkages in Learning and Innovation.
International Journal of Institutions and Economies, 3(2), pp.165–172.
Riedl, B.M., 2008. Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth. The Heritage Foundation, 4999(2208).
Siddiqui, D.A. & Ahmed, Q.M., 2013. The effect of institutions on economic growth: A global analysis based on GMM dynamic panel estimation. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 24, pp.18–33.
Silve, F. & Plekhanov, A., 2015. Institutions, innovation and growth: Cross-country evidence, W/P. no. 177, European Bank, London.
Sinha, D., 1998. Government Expenditure and Economic Growth in Malaysia. Journal of Economic Development, 23, pp.71–80.
Taiwo, M. & Abayomi, T., 2011. Government Expenditure and Economic Development : Empirical Evidence from Nigeria. European Journal of Business and Management, 3, pp.18–29.
Tebaldi, E. & Elmslie, B., 2008. Institutions, Innovation and Economic Growth. Journal of Economic Development, 33(2), pp.27–53.
Therkildsen, O., 2010. Working in Neopatrimonial Settings : Perceptions of Public Sector Staff in Tanzania and Uganda, WP. No. 117, Johannes, Gutenberg.
Wang, K., 2011. Health care expenditure and economic growth : Quantile panel-type analysis. Economic Modelling, 28(4), pp.1536–1549.
Wenyi Shen, Yang, S.-C.S. & Zanna, L.-F., 2015. Government Spending Effects in Low-income Countries, WP/15/286, International Monetary Fund.