The determinants of public spending: a survey in a methodological perspective

SURVEY: This article shows that applied econometric is not a way of selecting, from among a plethora of possible explanations of public spending evolution. It lists 19 explanations and 73 explanatory variables and provides evidence of the great confusion in this field and the relative emptiness of quantitative economics. Then it sustains the Mayer’s idea that “given all the weakness of econometric techniques, other ways of testing, such as appeals to qualitative economic history, should not be treated as archaic”