The Impact of Demographic Variables on Government Size in Iran during the years of 1979-2012

There are many theoretical reasons in the literature of the public sector to justify increasing government spending. In this regard, the main objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of demographic variables on the government size in IRAN during the years of 1979-2012. For this purpose the statistical data of 18 variables are used (6 demographic variables: total population, total population growth rate, population density, degree of urbanization, dependency ratio and social globalization, 8 economic variables and 4 political variables) that affect government size based on theoretical and empirical studies and Bayesian Averaging approach. The results show that among the demographic variables, total population with the possibility 0.955 (and positive coefficient) and dependency ratio with the possibility 0.522 (and positive coefficient) is a non-fragile and strong. The impact of other demographic variables on the government size is fragile and insignificant. On this basis, we can say that among the demographic variables, the total population and dependency ratio are the most important factors affecting the growth of public spending in Iran.