Table 15.

The effect of fiscal consolidation on total and social expenditure (POLS and FE) for middle-income countries

	POLS		FE
	(1)	(2)	(1)	(2)
	Total expenditure	Social expenditure	Total expenditure	Social expenditure
${\mathit{exp}}_{it-1}$	0.975*** (0.023)	0.962*** (0.028)	0.481*** (0.069)	0.595*** (0.073)
${\mathit{fa}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.451*** (0.135)	−0.163*** (0.048)	−0.452*** (0.127)	−0.143*** (0.051)
${\mathit{gdpg}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.012 (0.020)	−0.003 (0.007)	−0.053 (0.059)	−0.007 (0.024)
${\mathit{corrup}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.037 (0.440)	−0.306 (0.161)	−1.314** (0.625)	−0.489** (0.247)
${\mathit{debt}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.012 (0.009)	−0.006* (0.003)	−0.069*** (0.023)	−0.012 (0.009)
${\mathit{eldy}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.021 (0.071)	−0.002 (0.019)	0.475 (0.407)	0.143 (0.163)
${\mathit{young}}_{\mathit{it}}$	−0.005	0.010	0.338*	0.051
	(0.046)	(0.021)	(0.203)	(0.081)
constant	1.558 (1.804)	0.990* (0.545)	8.711 (7.525)	2.151 (2.968)
N	144	144	144	144
R-squared	0.946	0.904	0.799	0.766
Groups	18	18	18	18
Hausman			14.86**	17.28 ***

Robust standard errors are in parentheses Significance level at which the null hypothesis is rejected: p < 0.1*; p < 0.05**; p < 0.01***. The dependent variable is total government spending in model (1) and social spending in model (2)