The Optimal Magnitude of Government Spending: Evidence from Cambodia

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Hok, Leanghak, Bartha, Zoltan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Hok, Leanghak
Bartha, Zoltan
author_facet Hok, Leanghak
Bartha, Zoltan
contents Scholars and policymakers have vigorously debated what the impact of government spending on economic growth is. Some current research and theoretical models suggest that the reaction of economic growth to the extension of government spending can be either positive or negative. This article intends to investigate the inverted-U shaped relationship between output growth and government spending (i.e., government fixed capital formation [GFCF] and government final consumption expenditure [GFCE]). Ordinary least squares (OLS) is employed as an approach to annual data for Cambodia obtained from 1971 to 2015. The result reveals that GFCF and GFCE have an inverted-U shaped relation with economic growth and that 5.40% and 7.23% are the optimal values of GFCF and GFCE, respectively. The labour growth rate and export growth rate contribute positively to the growth rate of output. This study indicates that the increasing level of government expenditure reduces the efficacy of government spending, and also helps Cambodia's policymakers to control fiscal policy more efficiently.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_02368
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Optimal Magnitude of Government Spending: Evidence from Cambodia
Hok, Leanghak
Bartha, Zoltan
General Economics
Economics
Scholars and policymakers have vigorously debated what the impact of government spending on economic growth is. Some current research and theoretical models suggest that the reaction of economic growth to the extension of government spending can be either positive or negative. This article intends to investigate the inverted-U shaped relationship between output growth and government spending (i.e., government fixed capital formation [GFCF] and government final consumption expenditure [GFCE]). Ordinary least squares (OLS) is employed as an approach to annual data for Cambodia obtained from 1971 to 2015. The result reveals that GFCF and GFCE have an inverted-U shaped relation with economic growth and that 5.40% and 7.23% are the optimal values of GFCF and GFCE, respectively. The labour growth rate and export growth rate contribute positively to the growth rate of output. This study indicates that the increasing level of government expenditure reduces the efficacy of government spending, and also helps Cambodia's policymakers to control fiscal policy more efficiently.
title The Optimal Magnitude of Government Spending: Evidence from Cambodia
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02368