Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/23707 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Diskussionspapier No. 58
Publisher: 
Helmut-Schmidt-Universität - Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Fächergruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre, Hamburg
Abstract: 
Previous studies were plagued with considerable problems when interpreting and empirically analysing Wagner's Law. Therefore, we initially present some kind of "pure theory of government's share" for a two-person society based on the pure theory of public and private goods as originally developed by Samuelson. We show that Wagner's regime of a representative and authoritative individual and collective decision making – la Samuelson imply different government shares in GNP, though, in principle, Wagner's outcome can be generated even in a Samuelsonian context. Generalizing our results to an n-person society, we derive "optimal" government shares by use of various variants of the model, however, with very different distributional consequences.
Subjects: 
Wagner´ s Law
public goods
budget-to GNP-ratio
JEL: 
H50
H11
H41
D11
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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