The Wagner's Law and the Income Elasticity of Government Expenditure in Iran (1985-2018)

Wagner's Law states that the relative size of public sector increases with the growth of per capita income. This study examines whether there is empirical evidence that Wagner’s law holds in the Iranian economy using time series annual data over the period 1985-2018 in Iran, applying cointegration and vector error correction modelling (VECM) techniques. In particular, this study provides a special focus on examining the validity of the versions of Wagner’s hypothesis, which supports the existence of long-run relationship between public expenditure and economic growth. The results of the estimates demonstrate that this law holds in Iran. The elasticity of the government expenditures with respect to national income must be greater than one for the Wagner’s law to hold. However, government’s spending on health and education has been less than expected. Therefore, considering all the government’s spending, Wagner's law is valid in Iran. On the other hand, by examining government expenditures in health and education sector as the most important part of the government expenditures, it is seen that the revenue elasticity of government expenditures in the health and education sectors is less than one. Accordingly, our estimates for Iran do not confirm this law. Although the absolute size of the public sector grows when the income increases, its rate of growth in these sectors is substantially lower than the growth of income. This could suggest that the government does not pay enough attention to health and education sectors and that these are not priorities of the government.