Growth and Local Government Spending in Georgia

This brief is a technical analysis that estimates the effect of local government spending on economic growth at the county level in Georgia. Recent studies in the growth and economic development literature have emphasized the impact of government spending on growth at the national and state levels, but few of these studies have attempted to identify growth–enhancing government expenditures at the local level. Such studies are of great importance from a policy design point of view for the reason that if there is evidence of a positive effect of government spending on economic growth, it would be imperative to identify the adequate spending compositions needed to improve the growth impact of local government spending.