The Optimum Level of Government Spending

Echoing remarks earlier this month to a group in Nigeria, I spoke today about fiscal economics to the 2022 Africa Liberty Camp in Entebbe, Uganda.

During the Q&A session, I was asked to specify the ideal amount of government spending. I addressed that issue in an April interview while visiting Spain.

You’ll notice that I didn’t give a specific number in the above video. Just like I didn’t give a specific number to the audience in Uganda.

That’s because there is not an exact answer. The only thing we can definitively state is that government in most nations should be far smaller than it is today.

This is illustrated by the “Rahn Curve,” which I discussed both in the interview and in my speech today.

What is the Rahn Curve? Here’s some of what I wrote back in 2015.

…it shows the non-linear relationship between the size of government and economic performance. Simply stated, some government spending presumably enables growth by creating the conditions (such as rule of law and property rights) for commerce. But as politicians learn to buy votes and enhance their power by engaging in redistribution, then government spending is associated with weaker economic performance because of perverse incentives and widespread misallocation of resources.

And here’s a visual depiction of the Rahn Curve. The upward-sloping part of the curve shows that spending on genuine public goods is associated with more prosperity. But once government budgets exceed a certain level, additional spending means weaker economic performance.

In the above graph, I show that growth is maximized when government consumes about 15 percent-20 percent of economic output.

But I actually think prosperity would be maximized if government was a smaller burden, perhaps about 5 percent-10 percent of GDP.

In 2017, I explained the appropriate role of government in a libertarian society. My analysis was based on my “minarchist” views, which imply government only spends money for national defense and rule of law.

By contrast, my anarcho-capitalist friends would say we don’t need any government.

Meanwhile, moderate libertarians (or conservative Republicans) might be amenable to having state and local governments play a role in education and infrastructure.

The bottom line is that I think growth would be maximized if government consumes – at most – 10 percent of economic output (which was the size of government in the 1800s when the Western world became rich).

But I will be happy with any progress (particularly since government is projected to become an even bigger burden if left on autopilot).

If you want to watch more videos related to the Rahn curve, there are many options.

• The video I narrated explaining the basics of the Rahn Curve, which was produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
• A video from the Fraser Institute in Canada that reviews the evidence about the growth-maximizing size of government.
• A video from the Centre for Policy Studies in the United Kingdom that explores the relationship between prosperity and the size of the public sector.
• Even a video on the Rahn Curve from a critic who seems to think that I’m a closeted apologist for big government.
• And a video from the Institute for Market Economics that shows how there will be more growth with smaller government.

P.S. Here’s my response to a critic from the left.

P.P.S. Interestingly, some normally left-leaning international bureaucracies have acknowledged you get more prosperity with smaller government. Check out the analysis from the IMF, ECB, World Bank, and OECD.