Macroeconomic statistics for some of Tom's favorite countries and the G8

[fivemack]

Random data harvested from the World Factbook and a small spreadsheet; these are real dollars rather than PPP-adjusted dollars. Units are billions of dollars.

Place	Debt	External debt	Govt annual revenue	Govt annual spending	Revenue / GDP
Estonia	0.49	13.9	5.99	5.72	44%
Latvia	1.77	18.9	6.17	6.45	38%
Lithuania	5.43	15.1	9.42	9.76	31%
Romania	16.94	42.8	36.89	39.1	47%
Bulgaria	7.13	24.3	13.28	12.16	48%
Slovenia	10.92	29.1	15.9	16.35	42%
Czech Republic	34.6	50.2	57.88	62.53	49%
Slovakia	16.93	31.5	24.57	26.14	52%
Poland	165.13	147.3	62	71.3	18%
Hungary	77.59	107.3	48.7	59.6	43%
Greece	243.2	301.9	99.2	106.7	43%
Uruguay	10.1	11.4	5.2	5.45	36%
Chile	4.36	47.6	36.71	26.68	32%
USA	8600	10040	2409	2660	18%
UK	990	8280	973	1040	41%
Germany	1930	3904	1277	1344	44%
France	1400	3461	1150	1211	53%
Russia	60	287.4	222.2	157.3	30%
Canada	710	684.7	183.5	181.8	17%
Japan	8700	1547	1411	1639	29%
Italy	1920	1957	832.9	925	47%

Chile has the great advantage in the contemporary world that some of its many, many mountains are made out of copper, and that it's arranged a sensible royalty deal with the companies that are converting these mountains into water pipes and sending them to China; this explains in part how it manages to earn so much more than it spends whilst having negligible debt; Russia has that advantage raised to a high power. Estonia and Canada are famously sensible. But I really hadn't expected Bulgaria to join them in the league of fiscal prudence; in particular, I don't quite see why it doesn't make sense for Bulgaria to borrow another ten billion dollars, build what infrastructure it lacks (of course, maybe it has all needful infrastructure already), and repay over fifteen years of the budget surplus.

I hadn't realised that Western countries tended to have public debts of a good 60% of GDP, meaning (assuming interest rates at 6%, which is precisely what beingjdc is telling us not to assume) 4% of GDP, or about 10% of government income, goes on debt service; I hadn't really realised how much less tax the US, Canada and Poland (another odd juxtaposition) took in in comparison to EU countries.

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

In the specific case of the US, does the government annual revenue refer only to the federal government? A good third or so of my income tax goes to the State of Michigan, as of course does all the sales tax, property tax and so on.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Looks like federal only; http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/pdf/budget/tables.pdf says that for 2007 the federal budget was based on an income of 2416 and an outgoing of 2770 which fits these figures reasonably.

I suppose the federal government is the organisation which has the national debt; presumably the individual states have their own state debts, but I guess they don't have credit ratings quite as good as los federales.

[perkinwarbeck2.livejournal.com]

Those stats might be the same for Canada then, where provincial tax is about the same as Federal and the two together add up to about 30%.

[fanf]

Still remarkably low!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised at the debt ratio of Japan, and Canada is pretty unhealthy, while ours is excellent. I know the value is expected to fluctuate by economic cycle, but has it really been that bad for Japan for so long?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Japan entered a recession in 1989 and hasn't really left it, despite enormous spending on public works which is presumably what makes the govt spending so much greater than the govt revenue, and hence over twenty years the public debt so vast.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Its a traditional Keyenesian approach for governments to spend their way out of recessions by increasing their debt burden, but if as in this case it hasn't worked, they are stuffed, as their traditional manufacturing role is being taken by other Asian tigers, and the language barriers will make other avenues difficult.

[pompe.livejournal.com]

Is the debt external-only or is it both internal or external debt?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

It's the 'public debt as percentage of GDP' number from the CIA World Factbook multiplied by the 'GDP (official exchange rate)' number, whilst possibly I should have been using the 'debt: external' number. Hey ho, add another column ...

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Many of my favorite countries, as well, are on the list. I have never been to Latvia, Slovenia, Greece, Uruguay, Chile, and (except for the airport) Japan, but I've set foot in all of the others. I've even been to Slovakia eleven times! (But not, alas, in the past five years.)