Econobloggers: Does Big Government Help or Hurt Growth? Or Neither?
Tim Kane was nice enough to include my question in this year’s Hudson Survey of Leading Economics Bloggers (PDF). Here’s the question and the results:
Judging based on post-war economic data, how do prosperous, high-GDP/capita countries compare with one another? Countries with larger government sectors have _____ growth rates compared to countries with smaller government sectors.
As a group, they did very well on this question:
Almost 50% got the right answer, and those who got it wrong were evenly split.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
i would hazard that the right answer is “both”, not “neither.” It all depends on what that government does.
Not to mention the other circumstances of the times.
Growth rates are relative and somewhat connected. I fail to see the insight in this question.
@Bear:
Since the central and dominant post-Reaganomic economic mantra has been that big government hurts growth, it strikes me as a…useful insight to know that that is false.