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The Indian Government Has Been Growing Rapidly, It Would Appear
Thanks to PD for further research which has led to the following situation.
Data from the Planning Commission seems to indicate that India's government spending as a share of GDP is around 20 per cent or less. [see my blog post here]
But IMF data shows the following:
| Country | Funds | 1988 | 1998 | 2008 | 2012 |
| Australia | Revenue | 33.253 | 34.395 | 33.778 | 34.851 |
| Australia | Expenditure | 32.245 | 34.054 | 34.29 | 35.466 |
| India | Revenue | 13.453 | 16.115 | 19.896 | 18.781 |
| India | Expenditure | 19.527 | 23.925 | 27.714 | 26.058 |
| United States | Revenue | n/a | n/a | 32.564 | 32.308 |
| United States | Expenditure | n/a | n/a | 39.042 | 39.843 |
I'm only interested in TOTAL government expenditure as share of GDP, hence PD's comment about OMB's data is irrelevant. The data re: US and Australia is now looking fine, and matches with what I've known in the past, just that the US government has grown 10 per cent larger since I last thought about it.
Clarifications needed
The key difference between the data I dug up yesterday and this one is that according to IMF India raises 18 per cent of GDP as revenues (vs. Planning Commission data – relating to the central government – which indicates that the centre raises around 9 per cent of GDP as revenues; state revenues extra).
The idea that the states of India manage to generate 9 per cent of GDP as revenues sounds implausible. I've estimated (yesterday) that states generate around 1 per cent of GDP, with a max of 3 per cent, but that's a pure guess. I've not had time to study this issue.
Given that IMF have had time and energy to study this issue carefully, I should defer to them tentatively. One can't dispute facts.
In order to be fully convinced, though, I would prefer if PD or someone could cite an Indian source that has conducted such analysis, and show me how the states of India are able to raise around 9.5 per cent of GDP as revenues.
Read more at Sanjeev Sabhlok's Occasional Blog-Economics
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