EARLIER this week we

published

a playful comparison of how countries around the world spend their money. Feedback was positive, but some readers suggested—with varying degrees of politeness—that aggregating European Union countries could hide interesting regional differences in spending. The point is a good one. Looking at figures from just a handful of European countries reveals surprising contrasts. In Malta, an island nation of 450,000 south of Italy, almost 20% of household expenditure goes on restaurants or hotels. In Lithuania that figure is 2.9%. Relative to much of the EU, Lithuania is a poor country with a per capita household expenditure of €7,500 ($8,500), half the EU average. Thus its people spend a larger share of their budget on food and clothing than any other EU country. Somewhat predictably the Dutch splurge most on recreation, while Greeks spend the least (a trait that pre-dates the financial crisis)—the money they save could perhaps be spent on more sensible endeavours like transport, or paying-off debt.

See the full dataset with all EU countries here.