France’s public spending share: The role of the scope of the state

Comparisons are often made between France’s public spending share ( relative to GDP) and that of the other OECD or euro-zone countries to show that France’s public spending share is abnormally high. But for this comparison to make any sense, this gap between public spending shares needs to be corrected for differences in the scope of the state: some spending that is public in France is private in the other countries (pensions, health care, education, etc.). Once corrected for these differences in scope, we find that France’s public spending share remains considerably higher than those of the other euro-zone and OECD countries.