Government Spending Policies Research Articles

Adjustment and poverty: options and choices

The last decade has brought sharp adjustment and rising poverty for most of the developing world. Adjustment and Poverty: Options and Choices examines the major causes and results of this situation, including: *the relationship between structural adjustment and poverty; *the extent to which the situation was brought about by internal and/or external policies; *the impact of the IMF and World Bank on adjusting countries; *government tax and spending policies - with a particular focus on social sector spending; *the possiblity of better policies in the future.

Monopolistic Competition, Increasing Returns, and the Effects of Government Spending

The dynamic effects of government spending are considered in a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and increasing returns. In the economy, changes in the level of government spending endogenously raise total factor productivity, even though the spending itself is entirely wasteful. This leads to several results which contrast with the effects of government spending policies in environments with constant returns. A permanent increase in government spending increases the steady-state wage and may increase steady-state consumption. Also, regardless of its persistence, a temporary shock to government spending may simultaneously raise output, investment, the real wage, and consumption. Copyright 1996 by Ohio State University Press.

The Dynamic Effects of Government Spending Policies in a Two-Sector Endogenous Growth Model

This paper investigates the impact of government spending policies in a two sector model of endogenous growth. Endogenous growth arises because all factors of production - physical and human capital, are reproducible. Both temporary and permanent government spending shocks are examined. The model implies that a permanent, lump-sum financed, increase in government spending raises the long-run growth rate. This occurs because the negative wealth effects of a spending increase will increase labor supply. On the other hand, an income-tax (or wage-tax) financed rise in government spending reduces the growth rate. The output effects of a temporary increase in government spending may be greater or less than a permanent increase in spending. Copyright 1995 by Ohio State University Press.

Rent-Seeking as Nation-Building: A Comment on 'Canada's National Policies: Reflections on 125 Years'

In their paper, 'Canada's National Policies: Reflections on 125 Years,' Lorraine Eden and Maureen Appel Molot describe three versions of the National Policy and advocate a fourth. While I find their classification useful, I find their analysis troublesome in a number of respects. The authors define the term national policy as the 'conscious nation-building policies of successive federal governments'. They define the term nation-building as industry, infrastructure and society building for the purpose of fostering a sense of collective identity. An alternative is to define nation-building in terms of stewardship. This involves making investments which increase national wealth or, what is the same thing, increase the rate of growth of per capita income. It appears from the authors' discussion, however, that they consider government spending, regulatory and redistributive policies to be nation-building per se regardless of their effect on national wealth.

Government Spending, Policy Outputs, and Policy Outcomes: Health Policy in Yugoslavia

Two major questions to which public policy analysis has been addressed concern the relative influence of economic and political factors upon governmental policy, and the degree of linkage between government spending and the policy outcomes produced by these outlays. These questions are examined with data on health care policy in Yugoslav local governments (communes). A causal model is constructed to estimate the relationships among five conceptual stages in the policy process: (1) socioeconomic context (regional culture and economic structure), (2) political context (liberalism and bureaucratism), (3) government spending level (health spending per capita), (4) policy outputs (hospital beds and doctors per capita), and (5) policy outcomes (percentage of births and deaths with medical attention, and infant mortality rate). The causal model shows that political determinants of policy are much more important than economic ones among Yugoslav communes. Bureaucratization and political liberalism are clearly much more important than development context in determining spending levels; and bureaucratization has by far the greatest impact on health outputs. Popular political culture, rather than economic context, furthermore, emerges as the predominant influence on health outcomes. These causal patterns also indicate the existence of substantial discontinuities among the three stages of the policy process because health spending has only a marginal influence on outputs and because outputs and outcomes are only slightly related at best. What Sharkansky calls the previous investment necessary to create bureaucratic complexes explains the first discontinuity, whereas the second results from different cultural mores about ‘health behavior’ and about interactions with governmental authorities and with the modern world in general.

New Directions for American Unionism

America's trade unions take a dual approach to advancing the interests of workers and their families. This dual approach includes not only collective bargaining with employers but also renewed emphasis on representation of workers' interests in the political-legislative process. In the 1980s and 1990s the American labor movement will push at the bargaining table and at the ballot box for full employment and job security, fair income distribution through wage and salary improvements and better government taxing and spending policies, adequate health and safety protections for workers and their families, protection of workers against adverse affects of technological change, better U.S. trade policies, and a coherent national industrial policy. Union mergers in the 1980s and 1990s will strengthen the ability of unions to represent workers more effectively.

Ideology and opposition to abortion: trends in public opinion, 1972-1980.

Data from the National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey 1972-1980 are examined to determine the extent to which the conflict over legal abortion has come to be associated, in the structure of public opinion, with broader ideological differences concerning sexuality, feminism, and political liberalissm. Specifically, attitudes toward premarital sex, homosexuality, women's roles, liberal versus conservative political self-identification, and views on government spending policies are examined as possible ideological correlates of position on abortion. Log-linear analysis demonstrates that a clear, significant, and persistent association exists between abortion attitude and each of the other 5 issues, independent of religion, education, or sex of the respondent. Furthermore, there is no evidence of any change from 1972 to 1980 in the strength of the association of abortion attitude with any of the other questions considered, despite the increased polarization and politicization of the abortion issue over the time period studied.

Physicians' Practice Experience During the Decade of the 1970s

MANY changes affected all aspects of the US economy in the decade of the 1970s, not the least of which is the practice of medicine. Real gross national product increased approximately 33% during the 1970s, compared with 46% during the 19602. 1 The cost of living rose 103.6% in the 1970s vs 28.3% during the 1960s (oral communication, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oct 16, 1980). The unemployment rate was 5.8% of the labor force in 1979, compared with 3.5% in 1969 and 5.5% in 1959. 1 The disappointing performance of the economy during the 1970s and the resulting need to consider trade-offs in the use of the national product have important implications for the health care system in general and physicians in particular. Inflation contributes significantly to rising medical care prices, and the government's taxing, spending, and monetary policies impact on the practice of medicine just as they do in

On the Impact of State and Local Government Policies on Human Migration: A Log-Linear Analysis

The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact on human migration (locational decisions) of state and local government expenditure and income redistribution policies. Tiebout has suggested that the “. . . consumer-voter may be viewed as picking that community which best satisfies his preference pattern for public goods.” Presumably, “. . . the consumer-voter moves to that community whose local government best satisfies his set of preferences.” This paper seeks to test the validity of this argument by focusing on the migration impact of two types of state and local government spending policies: the average level (per recipient) of welfare payments and per capita non-welfare public expenditures.

The Cement Industry

the standpoint of future demand and sales, the cement industry has many interesting features, and the outlook seems more clearly defined than in most other lines of business. Although cement is widely used in almost all types of construction, the greatest amount is utilized for various types of public works. Hence, state and city budgets, in addition to Government spending policies, are of prime importance. The distribution and use of cement are as follows: Building construction, 33%; paving for highways, 25%; flood control, conservation, and power projects; 15%; rural purposes, 8%; bridges, transportation, and a wide variety of miscellaneous uses comprise the remainder. Typical of the most important uses of cement are airports, dams, dry docks, and highways.