Abstract
We examine the relation between government size and economic openness employing a panel of the 32 Mexican states between 1996 and 2006. Making use of two alternative measures of capital and labor openness and employing alternative econometric specifications, we first find systematic positive effects of our openness measures on the size of states’ total government spending. Thereafter, we focus on three subcategories of spending associated with social welfare: education, health and poverty alleviation. We find FDI flows are not statistically relevant determinants of social spending, but labor openness has a significant and greater impact on some of the aforementioned categories than on total spending.
Resumen
Se examina la relación entre el tamaño del sector público y la apertura económica empleando un panel de datos con las 32 entidades de la república mexicana entre 1996 y 2006. Haciendo uso de 2 medidas alternativas de apertura vinculadas al capital y al trabajo, y mediante especificaciones econométricas alternativas, encontramos en primer lugar, efectos positivos de nuestras medidas de apertura la magnitud del gasto total de los gobiernos estatales. Nos centramos después en 3 subcategorías de gasto asociadas al bienestar social: educación, salud y reducción de la pobreza. Encontramos que los flujos de IED no son determinantes relevantes del gasto social, pero sí que la movilidad de la mano de obra tiene un impacto significativo e incluso mayor en algunas de las categorías antes mencionadas que en el propio gasto total.
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