Public Spending in the 20th Century
A Global Perspective

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century.

Vito Tanzi (Author), Ludger Schuknecht (Author)

9780521664103, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 June 2000

308 pages, 41 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.43 kg

'Widely regarded as the classic international study on the subject.' David B. Smith, Chief Economist, Williams de Broë

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century. It documents the enormous increase in government spending throughout the 1900s across all industrialized countries. However, the authors find that the growth of the welfare state over the past thirty-five years has not brought about much additional social and economic welfare. This suggests that public spending in industrialized countries could be much smaller than today without sacrificing important policy objectives. For this to happen, governments need to refocus their role on setting the 'rules of the game', and the study provides a blueprint for institutional and expenditure policy reform. After a detailed account of reform experiences in several countries and the public debate regarding government reform, the study closes with an outlook on the future role of the state, which is crucial in that globalization may require and people want much 'leaner' but not 'meaner' states.

Part I. The Growth of Government: A Historical Perspective: 1. The growth of government since 1870
2. The composition of public expenditure
3. Revenue, deficits, and public debt
Part II. Gains from the Growth of Public Expenditure: 4. Historical evidence on government performance
5. The size of government and its performance
6. The experience of the newly-industrialized economies
Part III. The Role of the State and Government Reform: 7. Rethinking the role of the state
8. Fiscal rules and institutions
9. Blueprint for public expenditure reduction
Part IV. Recent Countries' Experiences in Reforming the Government: 10. Recent reform experience
11. Fiscal reform in the public debate
12. The future of public spending.

Subject Areas: Public finance [KFFD], Economic history [KCZ], Macroeconomics [KCB], Central government policies [JPQB]