Sweden: a spending reduction success story

Since 2006, when the current Swedish government was elected, government spending relative to GDP fell from 52.9 percent in 2006 to 51.8 percent in 2011, faring much better than the global average.

|
Anders Wiklund/Scanpix Sweden/Reuters/File
Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (R) shakes hands with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy at the Rosenbad government building in Stockholm in this May 4 file photo. Karlsson argues that Sweden has been successful in reducing government spending over the past six years.

Paul Krugman criticizes Senator Tom Coburn for using Sweden as a good example of a country that has reduced government spending and claims that this is false using a chart showing the change in real government purchases.

But this is misleading because first of all it doesn't put spending in relation to GDP and secondly and even more importantly because it excludes transfer payments such as unemployment and sick leave benefits. The Swedish centre-right government has in fact concentrated their spending cuts to transfer payments so any analysis using only government purchases is bound to be very misleading

If we instead look at total government spending as a percentage of GDP (called "government disbursements in the OECD database) you can see that since 2006, when the current Swedish government was elected, government spending relative to GDP fell from 52.9% in 2006 to 51.8% in 2011. By contrast, during the same period, the OECD average rose from 39.7%  to 44%, and in the United States it rose from 36.1% to 41.9%.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Sweden: a spending reduction success story
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Stefan-Karlsson/2012/0517/Sweden-a-spending-reduction-success-story
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe