Following the reviewer’s comments, we have now focused on one detailed analysis based on adequate tests and a discussion of the results. The revised version drops Descriptive statistics in old Table 2, rates of increase given in the old Table 3, correlations reported in old Table 4, the regressions in old Table 5, and pooled regressions of old Table 6. The discussion based on these Tables has consequently been omitted from the revision. The unit-root-test Tables have been moved from the Appendix to the text as Table 2, and in view of the evidence in favor of unit roots, rates of growth of GDP and government variables have been shown in Table 3 somewhat like the old Table 3. These are the most major changes.
Round 2: My recommendation is to accept the paper for publication.