An inquiry into the impact of current and capital government expenditure on the GDP in the short-run and long-run in the Iranian Economy: an application of The Bounds Testing Approach

A number of economists argue that the capital expenditure has a positive impact and the current expenditure has negative impact on output while others believe that the government expenditure, regardless of being current or capital spending, has a negative impact on the economy. In this direction, this paper tries to investigate the impact of current and capital government expenditure on output using ARDL approach with annual data for the Iranian economy during 1346-1393. The results indicate that in the short-run both current and capital expenditure, with one delay, have a significant negative impact on GDP while in the long-run both current and capital government have a significant positive impact on GDP. We also show that the size of the estimated parameter of the capital expenditure is twice larger than the size of the estimated parameter of the current expenditure. Using Lumsdaine-Papell test, we show that there is a structural break in the Iranian economy in 1352 (at that time the first oil-shock happened and the oil revenue increased and as a result both government expenditure and inflation increased). In order to accommodate this break we add a dummy variable to the model and we also show that when both current and capital spendings are accompanied by inflation will have a negative impact on output.