jetpack domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /mnt/stor08-wc1-ord1/694335/916773/www.tvhe.co.nz/web/content/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131updraftplus domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /mnt/stor08-wc1-ord1/694335/916773/www.tvhe.co.nz/web/content/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131avia_framework domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /mnt/stor08-wc1-ord1/694335/916773/www.tvhe.co.nz/web/content/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131The nominal share of GDP for govt C and I peaked in Dec-2009, and is still just above where it was in the 1990s. None of this is cyclically adjusted of course, but the hole we were in during 1990 was larger than the hole we are in now, or were in in 2009. So government expenditure on this basis is larger.
Also, we have more active family benefits, tax credits, and those forms of redistributionary packages than we did then – something that does count towards the real “size of government”. Hence why it is best to look at tax burdens.
For this we can go to Treasury’s long term fiscal series: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/data . This is a harder series to compare, as cash revenue doesn’t fit neatly into either total revenue or core crown revenue. On this revenue side the peak was in the early 1990s, but the period with Muldoon still saw lower revenues to NGDP than we saw under the final Labour government. Using this metric, the recession and National party policies have reduced revenue to NGDP – but the LR track is expected to head back to where it was with Muldoon.
The big difference the other way is the lack of direct intervention, price freezes, and ownership of industry – with the quality of data we can’t really really quantify a lot of what was going on back then. And as you say, it depends on what element we are talking about.
However, the current size of state is reasonable large – it is just good at marketing it quite differently 😉
]]>Exactly – I was just hoping people would raise those points separately and argue 🙂
]]>The temptation is just to look at government expenditure as a percentage of GDP, but that could be misleading. It will not tell you the number of government employees as a proportion of the workforce. A large chunk of spending could be contracted out to non-government organisations, and it is now in New Zealand. Government spending could also be dominated by a few large item, such as pensions and saving schemes that do not require large numbers of government employees.
Government spending also does not tell you directly about the level of regulation and intervention in industries. China, for example, has lower government consumption expenditure than New Zealand, but has, arguably, a higher level of regulation and intervention in industries. There is also a question about development too, countries with lower GDP tend to have lower government expenditure as a percentage of GDP. So the answer is…. lots of different answers depending on how you look at it.
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