Government spending and economic growth with Dr Dan Mitchell

Here’s a link to Dr Dan Mitchell’s International Liberty blog. 

Use these timestamps to jump right to the highlights:

• 1:40 – Gene mentions the Optimal size of government in Australia paper co-authored by Griffith University Professor Tony Makin and Economic Society of Australia (QLD) President Julian Pearce
• 3:00 – Dan notes empirical literature suggests optimal size of government around 20% of GDP
• 10:20 – discussion of OECD research on government spending and growth (see this OECD working paper and Dan’s blog plot)
• 17:10 – Dan notes the 1930s and 1960s were the two periods where the size of government really stepped up
• 20:05 – how a value-added tax (VAT) promotes growth of government
• 30:55 – discussion of Adam Smith’s dictum “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and tolerable administration of justice…” (see this Online Library of Liberty post)
• 32:45 – using foreign judges to import the rule of law