Governments will in the coming years need spending review more than ever before. Given the big surge in new spending which is currently underway, this might seem a strange statement. Spending review is, after all, the systematic search for areas where government spending can be cut. Many will argue that the last thing we need […]
[Warning: this is a technical blogpiece for public financial management specialists] Is moving to a accrual budgeting a good idea? This is a question I am asked from time to time. It is a controversial matter which needs to be carefully considered by any country contemplating making this move. Accrual budgeting has benefits, but also […]
The Financial Times has listed “Bigger Government” as one of the best economics books of 2020. The FT’s chief economics commentator, Martin Wolf, writes that the book is “quantitative, meticulous and sobering”. Read the review here.
My interview on Australian ABC Radio National’s program “The Money” (Oct 29) on Bigger Government is now available on YouTube.
Of all of the issues facing Americans in next Tuesday’s presidential election, healthcare is one of the biggest. Healthcare is a huge financial burden on Americans. The bad news is that the burden is set to become even heavier in coming years. This is why bold reforms are needed to tackle the waste and profiteering […]
Faced with the pandemic, big deficits and increased debt are not only inevitable, but desirable – on a strictly temporary basis. This is something on which nearly all economists agree. But this does not mean that high debt has someone become acceptable in the longer term. In the longer term, it creates huge risks. The […]
Although it is not the main driver of rising health expenditure, population aging will be a significant source of pressure on government budgets in other areas. Age pensions will, in some countries, be part of the problem. In the United States, for example, Congressional Budget Office projections suggest that government age pension spending will rise […]
There is a widespread notion that demographic aging will be the most important single factor driving health expenditure up over coming decades – or that, at a minimum, its impact on spending will be as great as any of the other forces which may be at work to increase spending. This is, however, wrong. Why […]
In Bigger Government: The Future of Government Expenditure in Advanced Economies I show that government spending is set to increase greatly over the coming three decades in all advanced countries because of powerful external forces and pressures which will operate irrespective of the political orientations of governments. Overshadowing everything else will be very large long-term […]
Impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the budget deficits of advanced economies are projected to reach 15 percent of GDP on average this year. Debt, already high, is set to increase by more than 20 percent of GDP. What can and should be done to fix public finances after the pandemic is over? The last thing […]