Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Public Expenditure and Economic Growth Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Wagner's Law

Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 136 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Article Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Public Expenditure and Economic Growth Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Wagner’s Law Sarjid Ahmed 1*, Prof. Prashanta Sharma 2 1 Department of Commerce, Gauhati University, Gauhati, Assam, India 2 Head Department of Commerce, Gauhati University, Gauhati, Assam, India Corresponding Author: *Sarjid Ahmed DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17586936 Abstract Manuscript Information The relationship between public expenditure and economic growth has been a focal point of fiscal policy analysis for over a century, largely shaped by the competing hypotheses of Wagner’s Law and Keynesian theory. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to map the intellectual structure and research trends surrounding Wagner’s Law within the broader discourse on public expenditure and economic growth. Using a systematic search in the Scopus and Web of Science databases with the keywords “Public Expenditure,” “Economic Growth,” and “Wagner,” a total of 69 relevant documents published between 1979 and 2025 were retrieved. The merged dataset was analysed using the Biblioshiny package in R. The results reveal a modest annual growth rate of 1.52% in publications, with an average of 16.04 citations per document and a moderate international collaboration rate of 13.04%. The intellectual landscape is dominated by empirical validations of Wagner’s Law across diverse economies, employing time-series econometric techniques. The findings highlight the persistent relevance of Wagner’s Law in fiscal policy research, the growing methodological sophistication in empirical testing, and emerging thematic clusters linking public spending to sustainable and inclusive growth. This study contributes a data-driven overview of the evolution, influence, and research frontiers in Wagner’s Law scholarship. ▪ ISSN No: 2583-7397 ▪ Received: 15-09-2025 ▪ Accepted: 26-10-2025 ▪ Published: 12-11-2025 ▪ IJCRM:4(6); 2025: 136-146 ▪ ©2025, All Rights Reserved ▪ Plagiarism Checked: Yes ▪ Peer Review Process: Yes How to Cite this Article Sarjid Ahmed, Sharma P. Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Public Expenditure and Economic Growth Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Wagner’s Law. Int J Contemp Res Multidiscip. 2025;4(6):136-146. Access this Article Online www.multiarticlesjournal.com KEYWORDS: Public Expenditure; Economic Growth; Wagner’s Law; Bibliometric Analysis; Fiscal Policy; Bibliometrix; VOS viewer; Fiscal Sustainability Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 137 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1. INTRODUCTION Bibliometric Analysis is a quantitative technique used in the analysis of scientific research output. Alan Pritchard was the first man who coin the term Bibliometrics in 1969 in his article “Statistical Bibliography or Bibliometrics” published in “Journal of Documentation”. However, it became more popular during the 1980s. Bibliometrics offer valuable information in evaluating academic research output. Public expenditure plays a pivotal role in shaping economic growth, influencing macroeconomic stability, income distribution, and infrastructure development. The debate over whether government expenditure drives or follows economic growth has been central to fiscal policy literature, primarily framed around Wagner’s Law and the Keynesian hypothesis. Wagner (1893) posited that economic growth leads to an expansion in public expenditure due to the increased demand for administrative, protective, and welfare functions. In contrast, the Keynesian perspective argues that public spending acts as a catalyst for growth, especially during economic downturns. Despite extensive empirical research, the literature lacks a comprehensive bibliometric synthesis of the evolution, influence, and collaboration patterns of studies on Wagner’s Law. This paper fills that gap by employing bibliometric analysis to map the intellectual and thematic structure of research spanning 1979–2025. Despite decades of empirical work, the evidence remains inconclusive and contextdependent, reflecting variations in methodological approaches, data periods, and national circumstances. To systematically uncover the structure and evolution of this literature, the present study conducts a bibliometric analysis of research explicitly connecting public expenditure, economic growth, and Wagner’s Law. Data were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases using the search string “Public Expenditure” AND “Economic Growth” AND “Wagner.” After merging and removing duplicates, a curated corpus of 69 documents spanning 1979–2025 was analysed using Biblioshiny. The findings reveal a modest yet sustained growth in publications (average annual rate: 1.52%), with scholarly contributions concentrated in countries such as Australia, Turkey, Greece, India, and the United States. The analysis also highlights the dominance of econometric methodologies, particularly cointegration, Granger causality, and error-correction modelling, which underpin the empirical testing of Wagner’s Law across diverse contexts. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic mapping indicate that the intellectual structure of this field is anchored around recurring clusters: Wagner’s law, public expenditure, economic growth, cointegration, and causality. The thematic evolution suggests that while methodological sophistication has increased, theoretical integration remains fragmented. The literature continues to revolve around verifying the direction and strength of the expenditure–growth relationship rather than developing new theoretical frameworks or comparative models. By synthesising and visualising these patterns, this study contributes to a clearer understanding of how research on public expenditure and economic growth has evolved under the lens of Wagner’s Law. It identifies dominant intellectual clusters, highlights underexplored areas, and provides a foundation for future empirical and policy-oriented investigations into the fiscal growth nexus. 2. METHODOLOGY 2.1 Data Sources and Search Strategy To map the intellectual structure of research connecting public expenditure, economic growth, and Wagner’s Law, the present study draws on two of the most comprehensive bibliographic databases—Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection. These databases were selected due to their extensive coverage of peer-reviewed journals, multidisciplinary reach, and advanced citation indexing capabilities. The search was conducted in August 2025, using the following Boolean search string applied to titles, abstracts, and keywords: "Public Expenditure" AND "Economic Growth" AND "Wagner" This query was intentionally designed to capture literature explicitly addressing the empirical or theoretical dimensions of Wagner’s Law within the broader discourse on fiscal policy and economic growth. Only journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and reviews written in English were considered to ensure relevance and comparability. No restrictions were placed on document type within those categories to allow a comprehensive view of the field. 2.2 Data Cleaning and Integration: The initial search returned 87 documents from Scopus and 54 documents from WoS. These datasets were exported in BibTeX and CSV formats, respectively, and subsequently combined into a single master file. Duplicate records identified using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), author names, and titles were removed using the built-in deduplication function in Biblioshiny for Bibliometrix (version 4.2.1). The final curated dataset comprised 69 unique documents spanning the period 1979– 2025, representing the total corpus used for analysis. 2.3 Analytical tools and techniques: Bibliometric analyses were performed using the R-based Bibliometrix package (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) and its graphical interface, Biblioshiny, and Vos viewer software (Van Eck & Waltman, 2009) was also used. Descriptive indicators such as annual scientific production, most relevant sources, authorship patterns, and country-level contributions were computed to provide an overview of publication trends. To explore the conceptual and intellectual structure of the field, the following advanced bibliometric techniques were employed: • Co-word analysis to identify the most frequent and cooccurring keywords, revealing the thematic focus and intellectual linkages. • Thematic mapping to classify themes based on centrality and density, distinguishing between motor, basic, emerging, and niche themes. • Trend topic analysis to visualise the temporal evolution of dominant keywords and methods. Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 138 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ • Co-authorship and country collaboration networks to examine the geographic and institutional distribution of research activity. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 1: Descriptive Publications Trend Category Indicator Value GENERAL INFORMATION Timespan 1979–2025 Sources (Journals, Books, etc.) 49 Documents 69 Annual Growth Rate (%) 1.52 Document Average Age 9.9 Average Citations per Document 16.04 References 0 DOCUMENT CONTENTS Keywords Plus (ID) 128 Author’s Keywords (DE) 171 AUTHORS Total Authors 150 Authors of Single-Authored Documents 13 AUTHOR COLLABORATION Single-Authored Documents 14 Co-Authors per Document 2.25 International Co-Authorships (%) 13.04 DOCUMENT TYPES Articles 66 Conference Papers 2 Reviews 1 The bibliometric dataset, comprising 69 documents published between 1979 and 2025, reflects a modest but sustained scholarly interest in the relationship between public expenditure and economic growth within the framework of Wagner’s Law. The annual scientific production shows intermittent activity in the 1980s and 1990s, followed by a gradual rise from 2005 Onward, coinciding with the increasing use of advanced econometric methods in macroeconomic research. The average annual growth rate of publications is 1.52%, indicating a stable expansion of scholarly attention. Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 139 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R A total of 49 distinct publication sources were identified, with the most prolific being Applied Economics, Panoeconomicus, and Empirical Economics. These journals are well-established in Applied economics, signalling that the Wagner’s Law debate continues to be anchored in mainstream empirical economics outlets rather than niche policy journals. Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 140 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 141 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R The field exhibits a moderate degree of collaboration, with an average of 2.3 authors per paper, suggesting that research in this area remains relatively individualistic compared to other economics subfields that rely heavily on large teams or coauthorship networks. Country-level analysis reveals that Australia and Turkey are the leading contributors, followed by Greece, India, Italy, and the United States. The presence of both developed and emerging economies underscores the global relevance of the expenditure–growth relationship. However, inter-country collaboration networks are relatively sparse, implying that most studies are nationally focused, often using time-series data from single-country contexts. Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 142 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Citation analysis indicates that the most influential studies tend to be those that employ rigorous econometric testing of Wagner’s Law using modern techniques such as cointegration and causality analysis. Foundational contributions that have inspired subsequent research include works examining long-run expenditure–income relationships across OECD and developing nations. These papers consistently serve as methodological. Benchmarks, explaining their high citation counts. The h-index and g-index of the dataset confirm the field’s moderate but enduring impact, reflecting steady citation accumulation rather than short-lived bursts of interest. The most cited journals and authors demonstrate a balanced mix of theoretical and empirical orientations, reaffirming the interdisciplinary character of this literature. Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 143 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Source: Author-generated using the Biblioshiny package in R Int. Jr. of Contemp. Res. in Multi. PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL Volume 4 Issue 6 [NovDec] Year 2025 144 © 2025 Sarjid Ahmed, Prof. Prashanta Sharma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: Author-generated using Vos Viewer Table 2: Cluster Analysis A co-word analysis of author keywords and Keywords Plus reveals the intellectual backbone of the field. The most frequently occurring keywords are “Wagner’s Law”, “Public Expenditure”, “Economic Growth”, “Cointegration”, “Causality”, and “Time Series Analysis”. These recurrent terms highlight the dominance of econometric modelling as the principal methodological approach to testing Wagner’s hypothesis. The thematic map, based on Callon’s centrality and density measures, classifies research themes into four quadrants: • Motor Themes (high centrality, high density): Wagner’s Law and Economic Growth, indicating mature, welldeveloped core topics central to the field. • Basic Themes (high centrality, low density): Public Expenditure and Cointegration, representing foundational yet evolving areas of inquiry that connect with broader macroeconomic debates. • Niche Themes (low centrality, high density): Fiscal Policy and Panel Data Analysis, reflecting specialised methodological niches gaining sophistication. • Emerging or Declining Themes (low centrality, low density): Government Size, Public Debt, and Causality Tests, which either represent re-emerging interest areas or those losing prominence as empirical paradigms evolve. The trend topic analysis demonstrates the chronological evolution of thematic focus. Early studies (1980s–1990s) were largely descriptive, testing Wagner’s Law through simple regression frameworks. Post-2000, with the advent of cointegration techniques, the literature witnessed a surge in studies emphasising long-run and short-run dynamics through Error Correction Models (ECM), ARDL bounds testing, and panel cointegration. From 2015 onward, there has been a growing interest in cross-country analyses and the integration of fiscal sustainability variables such as public debt and government size, suggesting an expanding analytical scope that situates Wagner’s Law within broader fiscal frameworks. The bibliometric evidence confirms that research on Wagner’s Law remains a significant and evolving domain within public finance. While methodological rigour has deepened through the adoption of advanced econometric models, the geographical and theoretical concentration of studies limits generalizability. Most contributions are country-specific, with minimal multicountry comparative analyses. Furthermore, although Cluster CallonCentrality CallonDensity RankCentrality RankDensity ClusterFrequency wagner law 0 50 1 2.5 2 public expenditures 0.839455782 52.67857143 5 4 15 cointegration 5.070720222 87.67919823 6 6 436 convergence 0.75 75 4 5 6 wagner's law 0.1 14.28571429 2 1 7 government 0.25 50 3 2.5 2