Convergence of public expenditures and implementation of a single model of public finances in the European Union

Abstract

The paper analyses whether the composition of public spending is converging in the European Union. The novelty of the paper lies in the use of different techniques from traditional beta and sigma convergences, of the economic and functional classifications of public spending, and of two measures of the size of public expenditure: as percentage of GDP and total public expenditures. The tests do not detect a convergence of the composition of public expenditures, mainly when the composition of public expenditures is measured as a percentage of total public expenditures