Assessing government spending in OECD countries and searching for savings

Sebastian Barnes, Boris Cournède and Fred Hanmer

No 1845, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Government expenditures average around 40% of GDP across OECD countries. With advanced economies facing fiscal challenges - including large deficits, high debt and rising ageing, climate and defence costs and already high taxes - there is strong interest in understanding and managing public spending. This paper explores the composition and determinants of government spending across OECD countries. It uses the classification of functions of government (COFOG) to analyse government expenditure across 13 key spending categories over the period 1995-2019 for 28 OECD countries with a view to identifying countries with exceptionally high spending in specific areas.

Keywords: COFOG; Fiscal Policy; Government Spending; OECD Countries; Panel Data Analysis; Public Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 H50 H60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10-29
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1845-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().