Government Expenditure And National Income: Causality Tests For Five South East Asian Countries

Abstract

This study aims to determine the direction of causality between national income and government expenditures for Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Granger causality tests are used to investigate the causal links between the two variables. Times series data covering last four decades are used. Support for the hypothesis that causality runs from government expenditures to national income has been found only in the case of Philippines. There is no evidence for this hypothesis and its reverse for the other countries.