Choosing Size of Government Under Ambiguity: Infrastructure Spending and Income Taxation
研究一个对民众偏好和公共支出生产率了解有限的规划者如何选择政府规模，发现不同支出水平都可被合理化，需大幅提升相关知识才能得出可靠结论。
I examine choice of size of government by a planner who has partial knowledge of population preferences and the productivity of public spending. Focusing on income tax‐financed spending for infrastructure, I examine scenarios where the planner observes the outcome of a status quo policy and uses various decision criteria to choose policy. The analysis shows that the planner can reasonably choose a wide range of spending levels – thus, a society can rationalise having a small or large government. I conclude that to achieve credible conclusions about the desirable size of government, we need to improve current knowledge of preferences and the productivity of spending vastly.