What's ideological about limited government?

Abstract The findings in the literature on the influence of government ideology on economic freedom are mixed. How to aggregate or disaggregate measures of limited government is an open question and causality remains a problem in most studies. This article employs data on government spending and regulation using a new disaggregation scheme developed by Ryan Murphy, and employs a causal strategy relying on comparing general results with results after close elections. The empirical findings indicate that government investment and ownership are affected by government ideology while a statistically significant association with government spending probably reflects the reverse causal direction.