Government spending cuts or change in the scope of the state?

The major government spending cuts that took place during the 1990s in Canada and Sweden are often mentioned and are held up as examples since they gave rise to a sharp reduction in the fiscal deficit that did not lead to a decline in growth, on the contrary in fact. But can public spending be lowered so drastically? Are we talking about real government spending cuts, or a change in the scope of the state, which has transferred services that were previously provided by the public sector to the private sector? We therefore look at trends in public and private spending for the major functions in Canada and Sweden and we see that most of the public spending cuts in the 1990s in Canada and Sweden were due to increased state efficiency and not to a change in the scope of the state .