A critical appraisal of the theories of government expenditure growth

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Economics - Macro-economics, general, grade: 1,3, Stellenbosch Universitiy (Department of Economics), course: Public Finance, Honours 2002, 18 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Since 1870 the growth in government spending has been a general trend in nearly all industrialised countries (Tanzi & Schuknecht 2000: 3). As this growth is not always welcomed and justified in terms of welfare and efficiency considerations economists deve loped a series of different theories seeking to explain this phenomenon. The objective of this paper is to give an appraisal of four theories of government expend iture growth and to provide an overview of the implications that are part of it.