caa a22 4500 606167951 CHVBK 20210128100705.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11127-014-0224-9 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11127-014-0224-9 Legitimacy and the cost of government [Elektronische Daten] [Niclas Berggren, Christian Bjørnskov, David Lipka] While previous research documents a negative relationship between government size and economic growth, suggesting an economic cost of big government, a given government size generally affects growth differently in different countries. As a possible explanation of this differential effect, we explore whether government legitimacy (measured by satisfaction with the way democracy works) influences how a certain government size affects growth. On the positive side, a government perceived as legitimate may "get away” with being big since legitimacy can affect behavioral response to, and therefore the economic growth cost of, taxation and government expenditures. On the negative side, perceived legitimacy may make voters less prone to acquire information, which in turn facilitates interest-group oriented or populist policies that harm growth. A panel-data analysis of up to 30 developed countries, in which two different measures of the size of government are interacted with government legitimacy, reveals that perceived legitimacy exacerbates a negative growth effect of government size in the long run. This could be interpreted as governments taking advantage of being regarded as legitimate in order to secure short-term support at a long-term cost to the economy. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2014 Legitimacy nationallicence Economic growth nationallicence Size of government nationallicence Confidence nationallicence Trust nationallicence Berggren Niclas Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), P.O. Box 55665, 102 15, Stockholm, Sweden aut Bjørnskov Christian Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), P.O. Box 55665, 102 15, Stockholm, Sweden aut Lipka David School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Anglo-American University, Lázeňská 4, 118 00, Prague, Czech Republic aut Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 162/3-4(2015-03-01), 307-328 0048-5829 162:3-4<307 2015 162 11127 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-014-0224-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-014-0224-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Berggren Niclas Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), P.O. Box 55665, 102 15, Stockholm, Sweden aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bjørnskov Christian Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), P.O. Box 55665, 102 15, Stockholm, Sweden aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Lipka David School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Anglo-American University, Lázeňská 4, 118 00, Prague, Czech Republic aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 162/3-4(2015-03-01), 307-328 0048-5829 162:3-4<307 2015 162 11127