Testing threshold cointegration in Wagner's Law: the role of military spending

This paper uses historical data since mid-19th century to test the validity of Wagner's Law for the Italian economy. Unlike the previous studies, we accommodate possible nonlinear asymmetric effects of total goverment spending and GDP toward their long-run equilibrium. Our results show the presence of a threshold cointegrating relationship between the two variables with significantly different error correction adjustments in normal and extreme regimes. Particularly, we find the validity of Wagner's Law from 1862 to 2009, only when we take into account strong nonlinear responses of government spending during the WWI and WWII period. Robustness checks clearly recognize nonlinear behaviour of government expenditure driven by military spendin

Government expenditure and economic development: evidence from Italy 1862-2009

Using a new historical dataset over the time period 1862-2009, this paper tests the validity of Wagner’s Law of public spending (WL) in Italy. To this aim, cointegration and Granger causation are used to investigate the long run relationship between GDP and government expenditure. Moreover, DOLS method is applied to estimate consistent long run elasticity between these two variables. In contrast to previous studies, we evaluate WL for both total government expenditure and some specific items of spending. Our main findings are that WL does not hold in the long run for total government expenditure. However, we find strong support for WL in the shorter time span from 1862 to the end of the 19th century. Here WL is confirmed as regards both total government expenditure and all the specific items of spending we have considered. Conversely, in the post-Second World War years, WL holds only for capital expenditure, compensation of employees, justice and national security, welfare and redistribution by the state. Thus, it seems that Italy invested a great deal and for a long period in infrastructures, justice, national security, and welfare, and less in items such as education and culture that play a paramount role in the formation of human capital

La spesa pubblica in Italia: una crescita senza limiti?

Using new historical data, this paper evaluates Wagner’s Law in Italy over the time period from 1862 to 2009. To this aim, cointegration and Granger causation are used to investigate the long run relationship between government expenditure and GDP. Moreover, DOLS method is applied to estimate consistent long run elasticity between these two variables. Our main findings are that Wagner’s Law does not hold in the long run for total government expenditure. However, we find strong support for Wagner’s Law in the shorter time span from 1862 to the end of the 19th century. Such a result seems the consequence of state-building after Italy’s political unification. The new-born Italian state made a huge effort to create nation-wide infrastructures (i.e., railways, telegraph, mail, and so on) as well as an administrative structure well-ramified throughout the country. Conversely, evidence in support of Wagner’s Law is weaker in the period following WW2. Now Wagner’s Law is not verified for total government expenditure, but only for social spending, infrastructure spending, and spending for subsidies to the economy. This seems the consequence of the expansion of income-elastic cultural and welfare expenditures that were demanded to the state

International financial flows, domestic banks, and the economic development of the periphery: Italy 1861-1913

This paper analyses the impact of different sources of financing (foreign capital, migrants’ remittances, and domestic banks intermediation) on economic development in Italy between 1861 and WWI. Existing literature has analysed the role of these channels of financial intermediation separately, while this paper for the first time considers them in conjunction. Using IRF from a Cholesky identification structure of a VAR model and relying on an original dataset that combines the most recent series of several financial and economic aggregates, this paper shows that both international capital and domestic saving had a significant impact on investment, while remittances did not. Foreign capital was invested directly, but also via domestic banks, in particular the “German-style” universal banks. Finally, foreign and d omestic capital had different attitudes towards the types of investment (construction vs. plant, machinery and transport equipment) and industries they financed. Combined together, these results shed a new light on the process of economic development of Italy and, more generally, of peripheral economies in the age of the international gold standard

Determinants of Central Bank independence: a random forest approach

In this paper we implement an effcient non-parametric statistical method, Random survival forests, for the selection of the determinants of Central Bank Independence (CBI) among a large data base of political and economic variables for OECD countries.This statistical technique enables us to overcome omitted variables and overftting problems. It turns out that the economic variables are major determinants compared to the political ones and linear andnonlinear effects of chosen predictors on CBI are found

External constraint and economic growth in Italy: 1861-2000

This paper analyzes the relationship between external constraint and economic growth in Italy from 1861 to 2000. In particular, it investigates whether the persistent current account deficits in the 1861-1913 years constrained output growth. To this aim it studies the genesis of the current account fluctuations, that is whether these were generated by the dynamics of the GDP or by variations in capital inflows. Using integration and co-integration analysis and the Granger causality testing, it shows that in the long run Italy\u2019s external position is sustainable: the Italian economy seems to have used the external deficits (surpluses) to smooth its aggregate consumption. Moreover in the shorter 1861-1913 sub-period, the persistent current account deficits, financed by foreign capital inflows, do not seem to have curbed economic growth