The political economy of government size

We contribute to the political economy of public-sector growth by integrating three essential elements (i) the 'demand' for government stemming from attempts to coercively redistribute, as well as from demand for public services, often analyzed in a median voter framework; (ii) the 'supply' of taxable activities emphasized in Leviathan and other models of taxation; and (iii) the distribution of 'political influence' when influence and economic welfare are distinct. We combine these elements in a spatial voting framework, and use the comparative static properties of the model to shed light on empirical results in the literature.