دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مطالعه تکراری "باز بودن، اندازه کشور و اندازه دولت" - Sage 2018

Abstract

Ram (Journal of Public Economics, 93, 213-218, 2009) questions the body of influential research suggesting that there is a negative association between country size and government size, and country size and openness, which may account for the positive association between openness and government size. Using data from the Penn World Table (PWT), he shows that while openness is positively related to government size, fixed-effects estimates show little evidence of the aforementioned negative associations. We replicate Ram’s results using his data set and a newer revised version of the same data set and find that the ensuing government size–openness association is dependent on the version of the PWT data and the composition of the sample. In addition, we find some evidence of a negative association between country size and government size in the larger sample, but there remains no clear association between openness and country size.

Concluding

Remarks This replication study revisits Rodrik’s (1998) claim that government spending plays a risk reducing role in open economies which had support in Ram’s fixed-effects results. We show that the positive association between government size and openness is dependent on the version of the PWT data and the composition of the sample. In particular, the positive coefficient of openness is insignificant when using the updated PWT data for Ram’s sample (154 countries, 1960 to 2000) but significant when expanding the sample to additional countries and years (189 countries, 1960 to 2010). This mixed result is evidenced in the literature where there is no uniform support for Rodrik’s hypothesis. For example, Benarroch and Pandey (2008, 2012) find that bigger government Granger causes lower openness, but openness does not Granger cause government size. This remains true whether one considers aggregated government spending or specific expenditure components. Shelton (2007) observes that government expenditures associated with increased openness are not in categories that explicitly insure for risk.

We also find some evidence in favor of Alesina and Wacziarg’s hypothesized negative association between country size and government size. While Ram finds a significant positive association between country size and government size, the country size coefficients using PWT 7.1 data are negative and attain significance in some instances. However, as was the case in Ram’s analysis, the country size coefficients using PWT 7.1 data are not significant in the country size–openness regressions. Because Alesina and Wacziarg’s hypothesis that country size mediates the positive relationship between openness and government size requires that there exists a negative association between country size and government size, and country size and openness, we replicate Ram’s result that fixed-effects estimates do not support the joint hypothesis.