Self-Sufficiency Subcomponent: Government Supports – Government Expenditures

Government outlays are a broad indication of the support a government provides to those in society. While not direct (as, say, pure household income transfers), many of these outlays are redistributive, providing, for example, higher-value services than what a number of recipients contributed in the form of taxes. These measures can both reflect societal attitudes around self-reliance and impact these values. On this measure, we see that many of the emerging Asian countries have very small governments relative to the size of their economies. Singapore’s government spends a bit over 15% of GDP, and China's government doesn't spend that much more, about 20%. India is a bit lower down but still in the top quartile, with government spending around 25% of GDP. There is some variation among Latin American countries, with Mexico’s government outlays at less than 25% of GDP, and Argentina’s and Brazil’s governments closer to 35%-40%, around the middle of the pack. Japan and the US are also in the middle. France and Italy are on the other end of the spectrum. Their governments spend between 50% and 55% of GDP.

政府支出是政府向社会提供支持的广泛迹象。虽然不是直接的（例如，纯家庭收入转移），但许多这些支出是重新分配的，例如提供比一些收款人以税收形式提供的更高价值的服务。这些措施既可以反映关于自力更生的社会态度，也会影响这些价值观。在这个措施上，我们看到许多新兴的亚洲国家相对于经济规模来说规模很小。新加坡政府占国内生产总值的15％以上，中国政府并没有花更多的钱，约占20％。印度略低，但仍处于前四分之一，政府支出约占国内生产总值的25％。拉美国家有一些变化，墨西哥的政府支出不到GDP的25％，而阿根廷和巴西政府则接近35％-40％左右。日本和美国也在中间。法国和意大利在另一方面。他们的政府花费在GDP的50％到55％之间。