This paper tests alternative hypotheses of government size and growth using data from Greece, a country with unusual economic and political changes in the post-war period. Simple Wagner-type models, where the ratio of government expenditure to income is regressed on per capita income, perform very poorly, whereas structural Wagner-type models, where industrialisation and urbanisation appear as explanatory variables, perform better. Results improve substantially when population variables are added to the regressors. The demand-for-public-goods model does not give entirely satisfactory results. Dynamic models perform much better than static ones, which clearly shows that government expenditure is affected by more factors than those allowed for in simple static models.

 

 

Drawing on the experience of a region located in northern Greece which achieved very rapid rates of growth of garment manufacture, we argue that there has been a renaissance of an all too familiar mode of industrialisation--one based upon paring costs and evading official imposts. Through a series of sub-contracting arrangements and via a network of agency houses, production was diffused from Germany, to the Greek periphery; and then subsequently as the pattern of costs altered, from the peripheral metropolis, Thessaloniki, to the surrounding towns and countryside. By drawing heavily upon local resources the garment enterprises of Polikastro-Peonia were incorporated into a wider industrial complex.

 

 

This paper examines the external security factors that may influence defence spending in Greece vis-a-vis her neighbour Turkey. It suggests indices of military capabilities that may assist in the empirical investigation of the weapons build up between the two countries.