OPTIMAL SIZE OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT SECTOR FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ITS IMPACT ON THE EU ECONOMIES

Abstract

This article is an attempt to determine the optimal size of the general government sector (GGS) from the point of view of the economies of EU countries. Achievement of this research objective implied a few intermediate objectives. Firstly, measures enabling the description of the size of the general government sector were identified. In order to do that, measures present in the literature, classical measures of size of the GGS, as well as the public sector were extended to include additional measures proposed by the authors. Selected variables enabled us to measure the size of the GGS, choosing sector variables which positively influenced the economies of EU countries. Based on that, researches on optimization of the size of the general government sector from a perspective of the economies of EU countries were made, using for that purpose an approach based on diagnostic inference. A combination of research methodology innovative for such elaborations on the topic adopted by the authors resulted in the paper, presenting in a complex manner the issues of combining measures and impact of the general government sector on the economies of the researched countries.