We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part I - The Growth of Government
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2020
Government expenditure needs to be financed. The two ways to do so are via taxes or via deficits and debt. For the first 90 of the past 150 years, public expenditure broadly grew in line with revenue, except during wars and times of crises. This changed fundamentally in the 1960s and early 1970s as the ‘Keynesian revolution’ took hold.Over the past fifty years, revenue rose strongly, but public spending often increased even faster. Chronic deficits stoked a high and growing stock of public debt in much of the advanced world. Public debt in the largest countries is now similar to the level prevailing at the end of the Second World War. Future governments will also face significant liabilities from increasing public expenditure related to population ageing, as well as fiscal risks from the financial sector. These liabilities and risks imply higher expenditure which will need to be financed. At the same time, there are political and economic limits to both taxation and indebtedness.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
