Public expenditure and national income - Time series evidence from Greece

Abstract

The paper investigates the existence and nature of long-run relationships between Greek national income and four categories of public expenditure. Our results suggest that there exists a positive long-run relationship between GDP on the one hand; and public expenditure and “productive” public consumption on the other, with causality running both ways. There appears to be no long-run relationship between GDP and public-sector personnel expenditure; and GDP and public-debt service expenditure. From that point of view, it would appear that in terms of output growth, the fiscal policy followed by Greece during the 1975-1990 period has rather been ineffective.