Determinants of General Government Social Spending: Evidence from the Eurozone

The paper analyses selected determinants of social spending in the eurozone countries. The sample includes 17 eurozone countries (euro area countries except for Malta and Slovenia) analysed over the time sample, which covers annual data between 1996 and 2017. The paper takes into account three categories of social spending: aggregated welfare spending, aggregated social protection spending, and spending on social protection benefits, and evaluates the statistical and quantitative effects of their selected determinants. The set of determinants includes general macroeconomic variables related to the condition of the economy and selected demographic factors. The analysis is based on panel data. The obtained results point out the effects of macroeconomic factors on social-type spending and the effects of old-age dependency ratio on spending, whereas the significance of the rest of the analysed demographic factors is generally ambiguous and depends on the type of spending under consideration, applied approach, specification, as well as the control variables used in the analysis.