Government expenditures in Nigeria: Re-examination of Wagner’s law

Orobosa Abraham IHENSEKHIEN, John Gbubemi MAYUKU

Abstract


Abstract. Nigerian data covering 1981 to 2018 were applied to affirm Wagner’s law with respect to the five different models. The significance of this paper is to establish whether there exists a relationship between total government expenditures and the Nigerian economy. To accomplish the objective of this paper, data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin of various years. Several statistical and econometric tests were conducted. The results obtained revealed that there exists positive and statistical significance as well as a long-run relationship between the variables employed in the various models and that Wagner’s law was held to exist in the Nigerian economy in the timeframe of the study. It is therefore, recommended that the Nigerian government should improve her sources of income in order to satisfy the increasing demand of her people now and in the future.

Keywords. Wagner’s law, Total government expenditures, Real GDP.

JEL. H11, H50, C13, C22.


Keywords


Wagner’s law; Total government expenditures; Real GDP.

Full Text:


References


Abizadeh, S. & Gray, J. (1985). Wagner’s law: A pooled time series cross session comparison. National Tax Journal, 88, 209-218.

Abu-Bader, S. & Abu-Qarn, A.S. (2003). Government expenditure, military spending and economic growth: Causality evidence from Egypt, Israel and Syria. Journal of Policy Modeling, 25(6-7), 567-583. 10.1016/S0161-8938(03)00057-7

Aigheyisi, O.S. (2013). The relative impacts of federal capital and recurrent expenditures on Nigeria’s economy (1980-2011). American Journal of Economics, 3(5), 210 -226. 10.5923/j.economics.20130305.02

Akinlo, A.E. (2013). Government spending and national income Nexus for Nigeria. Journal of Business Research, 7(1), 33-41.

Alajekwu, U.B. & Obi, C.O. (2011). Impact of government expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria. International Journal of Banking and Finance, 3(1), 113-121.

Alimi, R.S. (2013). Testing augmented Wagner’s law for Nigeria based on cointegration and error-correction modeling techniques. MPRA Paper No.52319. [Retrieved from].

Ansari, M.A., Gordon, D.V. & Akuamoach, C. (1997). Keynes versus Wagner: Public expenditures and national income for three African countries. Applied Economics, 29(9), 543-550. 10.1080/000368497327038

Antonis, A., Constantinons, K. & Persefoni, T. (2013). Wagner’s law versus Keynesian Hypothesis: Evidence from pre-WWII Greece. Panoeconomicus, 60(4), 457-472. doi. 10.2298/PAN1304457A

Aregbeyen, O. (2006). Co-integration, causality and Wagner’s law: A test for Nigeria, 1970-2003. Central Bank of Nigeria Economic and Financial Review, 44(2), 1-17.

Babatunde, M.A. (2008). A bound testing analysis of Wagner’s law in Nigeria: 1970-2006. Applied Economics, 42(21), 2843-2850. doi. 10.1080/00036840903425012

Bairam, E.I. (1995). Level of aggregation, variable elasticity and Wagner’s law. economics Letters, 48(3-4), 341-344. doi. 10.1016/0165-1765(94)00628-F

Bayrakdar, S., Demez, S. & Yapar, M. (2015). Testing the validity of Wagner’s law: 1998-2008. The case of Turkey. Procedia Social and Behavioural Sciences, 195, 493-500. doi. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.251

Bohl, M.T. (1996). Some international evidence on Wagner’s law. Public Finance/Finances Publiques, 51(2), 185-200.

Burney, N.A. (2002). Wagner’s hypothesis: Evidence from Kuwait using co-integration tests. Applied economics, 34(1), 49-57. 10.1080/00036840010027540

Central Bank of Nigeria (2015). Statistical Bulletin, vol.26.

Central Bank of Nigeria (2016). Statistical Bulletin, vol.27.

Dakurah, H., Davis, S. & Sampath, R. (2001). Defence spending and economic growth in developing countries: A causality analysis. Journal of Policy Modeling, 23(6), 651-658. doi. 10.1016/S0161-8938(01)00079-5

Dickey, D. & Fuller, W. (1979). Distribution of the estimators for auto regressive time series with a unit root. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74(366a), 427-731. 10.1080/01621459.1979.10482531

Dickson, T.D.I. (1996). Economics of Public Sector. Malaysia: Macmillan.

Ergun, D. & Tuck, C. (2006). Government expenditure and national income: Causality tests for five South East Asian Countries. International Business and Research Journal, 5(10), 49-58. doi. 10.19030/iber.v5i10.3516

Essien, E.A. (1997). Public sector growth, an economic test of Wagner’s law. CBN Economic and Financial Review, 35(3), 35-56.

Forte, F. & Magazzino, C. (2010). Government size and economic growth in Italy: A time-series analysis. European Scientic Journal, 12(7), 149-169. doi. 10.19044/esj.2016.v12n7p149

Ganti, S. & Kalluri, B.R. (1979). Wagner’s law of public expenditures: Some efficient results for the United States. Public Finance, 34(2), 225-233.

Goffman I.J. (1968). On the empirical testing of Wagner’s law: A technical note. Public Finance, 23, 359-641.

Goffman, I.J. & Mahar, D.J. (1971). The growth of public expenditure in selected developing nations: Six Caribbean countries. Public Finance, 26(1), 57-74.

Granger, C.W.J., & Newbold, P., (1974). Spurious regression in econometrics. Journal of Econometrics, 2(2), 11-120. 10.1016/0304-4076(74)90034-7

Granger, C.W.J. (1981). Some properties of time series data and their uses in econometric model specification. Journal of econometrics, Elsever, 6(1), 121-130. 10.1016/0304-4076(81)90079-8

Gupta, S.P. (1967). Public expenditure and economic growth: A time series analysis. Public Finance, 22(4), 423-461.

Huang, C.J. (2006). Government expenditures in China and Taiwan: Do they follow Wagner’s law? Journal of Economic Development, 31(2), 139-148.

Islam, A.M. (2001). Wagner’s law revisited: Co integration and exogeneity tests for the USA. Applied Economics Letters, 8(8), 509-515. 10.1080/13504850010018743

Johansen, S., & Juselius, K. (1990). Maximum likelihood estimation and inference on co-integration with application to the demand for money. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 52(1), 169-201. doi. 10.1111/j.1468-0084.1990.mp52002003.x

Johansen, S. (1988). Statistical analysis of co-integration vector, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 12(2-3), 231-254. doi. 10.1016/0165-1889(88)90041-3

Kalu, I.E. & James, O.E. (2012). Government expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria, 1980-2011. International Journal of Academic Research, 4(6), 204-208.

Krzyzaniak, M. (1974). The case of Turkey: Government expenditures, the revenue constraint and Wagner’s law. Growth and Change, 5(1), 13-19.

Landau, A. (1985). Government expenditure and economic growth in the developed countries. Public Choice, 12(3), 459-447. 10.1007/BF00182148

Mann, A.J. (1980). Wagner’s law: An econometric test for Mexico, 1925-1976. National Tax Journal, 3(2), 189-201.

Morris, M.D. (1987). Measuring the Condition of the World’s Poor: The Physical Quality of Life Index. New York: Pergamon.

Muhlis, B. & Hakan, C. (2003). Causality between public expenditure and economic growth: The Turkish case. Journal of Economic and Social Research, 6(1), 53 – 72.

Murthy, V.N. (1994). Further evidences of Wagner’s law for Mexico: An application of co-integration analysis. Public Finance/Finances Publiques, 48(1), 92-96.

Musgrave, R.A. (1967). Fiscal Systems. New Heaven and London: Yale University Press.

Nagaranjan, P. & Spears, A. (1990). An econometric test of Wagner’s law for Mexico: A re-examination. Public Finance/Finances Publiques, 45(1), 165-168.

National Population Commission (2018), Abuja, Nigeria.

Nomura, M. (1995). Wagner’s hypothesis and displacement effect in Japan. Public Finance, 50(1), 121-135.

Ogbonna, B.C. (2012). Does the Wagner’s law hold for Nigeria: 1950-2008. JORIND, 10(2), 290-299.

Omoke, P. (2009). Government expenditure and national income: A causality test for Nigeria. European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, 2(2), 1-11.

Park, W.K. (1996). Wagner’s law vs Keynesian Paradigm: The Korean experience. Public Finance/Finances Publiques, 51(1), 71-91.

Peacock, A.T. & Wiseman, J. (1961). The Growth of Government Expenditures on the United Kingdom. Princeton; Princeton University Press.

Pryor, F.L. (1968). Public Expenditure in Communist and Capitalist Nations. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Pulta, J.E. (1786). Wagner’s law, public sector patterns and growth of public enterprises in Taiwan. Public Finance Quarterly, 7(1), 25-46. 10.1177/109114217900700102

Ram, R. (1986). Causality between income and government expenditure: A broad international perspective. Public finance, 43, 393-413.

Rostow, W.W. (1960). The Stages of Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sekantsi, L.P. (2017). Testing the validity of Wagner’s law in Lesotho. International Peer Reviewed. 3(5), 1-28.

Serletis, A. & Affixatiou, P.C. (1996). Government expenditures in the European union: Do they converge or follow Wagner’s law. International Economic Journal, 10(3), 33-47.

Sidertis, D. (2007). Wagner’s Law in 19th Century Greece: A Cointegration and Causality Analysis. Department of Economics, University of Loanina, University Campus 45110 Loaninna, Greece.

Vamuokas, G. & Loizides, I.J. (2005). Government expenditure and economic growth: Evidence from trivariate causality testing. Journal of Applied Economics, 8(1), 125-152. doi. 10.1080/15140326.2005.12040621

Verbeck, W.S. (2000). The nature of government expenditure and its impact on sustainable economic growth. Middle Eastern Finance and Economic Journal, 4(3), 25-56.

Wagner, A. (1893). Grundlegung der Politicschen Okonomic, (3rd ed). Leipzig: C.F, Winter.

Weil, D. (2009). Economic Growth, (2nd ed). Singapore: Pearson Education.

World Bank (2019). World Development Indicators, Washington D.C.: World Bank.

Yalcin, A.H.E. (1987). Kamu Kesiminin Buyumesi: Turkiye icin Uygulamali Bir Calisma (1963-1985). Unpublished PhD thesis. Ankara: Ankara Universitesi.

Ziramba, E. (2008). Wagner’s law: An economic test for South Africa, 1960-2006. South African Journal of Economics, 76(4), 596-606. doi. 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2008.00218.x




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1453/jepe.v6i2.1874

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Journal of Economics and Political Economy - J. Econ. Pol. Econ. - JEPE - www.kspjournals.org

ISSN: 2148-8347

Editor: jepe@ksplibrary.org   Secretarial: secretarial@ksplibrary.org   Istanbul - Turkey.

Copyright © KSP Library