Abstract: There is a certain correlation between government financial expenditure and economic growth, but ideas differ at which is the cause or the result. Through a cointegration analysis between Japanese government expenditure and economic growth during 1956-2008 and a Granger causality test, it is found that there exists a stable long-term positive cointegration relationship and an one-way causal relationship between the financial investment expenditure and financial consumer spending of Japanese government and the economic growth; economic growth is the Granger cause of the growth of financial expenditure, while the financial expenditure, whether investment or consumer, is not the Granger cause of economic growth. Starting from this conclusion, China should draw lessons from Japan's experience in implementing the proactive fiscal policy by controlling the size, optimizing the structure, ensuring quality and improving efficiency.

Key words: government of Japan; financial expenditure; economic growth; fiscal policy