Government spending grows with national expenditure
Comparing Gross national expenditure (current US$), annual growth rate with General government final consumption expenditure (current US$), annual growth rate across 179 countries, 2004–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.65
- Holding size constant
- +0.65
- Countries compared
- 179
- Period
- 2004–2025
What might link these
The growth rate of general government final consumption expenditure may be linked to the growth rate of gross national expenditure due to governments increasing spending as the economy grows. A careful reader should be cautious about inferring causation and consider other factors such as inflation or economic policy. A likely confounder could be the overall economic growth rate of a country.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. This correlation could mislead by suggesting a direct causal relationship between government spending and national expenditure, when in fact it may be driven by underlying economic trends.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.