The size of government and economic growth in EU countries

Abstract

The relationship between the public sector size and economic growth is the subject of many discussions. Momentarily, the four elementary streams are defined, while the resulting impact depends on the monitored sample of the countries and the employed methodology. The aim of the paper was to identify the impact of the public sector size on the economic growth of the 27 EU countries in the period 1996 to 2021. The public sector size was quantified using four different variables as total public expenditure, total public revenue, tax revenue and final government consumption. Through panel regression, the negative impact of the public sector size on the economic growth of the EU countries was demonstrated in all four models, while the most significant negative impact was reached by the final government consumption. The significant negative impact of the crisis presence on the economic growth of the EU countries was also demonstrated. The EU countries should focus their activities there to diminish the public sector growth and to manage the structure of the government expenditures from the current to capital expenditures of an investment characteristic.