by Jim Rose in economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: Australia, growth of government, lost decades, size of government, Sweden

I came across this data showing that New Zealand and Sweden had the same sized public sectors in the mid-1980s some years ago. The data could not be found again for a long time in the OECD statistical databases. One reason was the OECD changed its name to general disbursements.

Data extracted on 12 Feb 2016 08:45 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.

The size of the public sector in Australia has not changed much for 30 odd years. The public sector has been in a long decline in Sweden and New Zealand since peaks as a percentage of nominal GDP in the late 1980s and early 1990s respectively.

I know of no comments on the large size of the New Zealand public sector as measured by general government expenditure in the late 1980s. Its contribution to the stagnant economic growth of that time is worth exploring.