{"chart":{"title":"Government spending as share of GDP","subtitle":"Total government spending, shown as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). It includes interest paid on government debt.","note":"Data for general government (includes central, state, and local governments and social security funds) is used when available. When not, data refers to central government.","citation":"International Monetary Fund (2025)","originalChartUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-gov-spending-gdp?csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false","selection":["Japan","United States","Germany","United Kingdom","China"]},"columns":{"Government expenditure (% of GDP)":{"titleShort":"Government expenditure (% of GDP)","titleLong":"Government expenditure (% of GDP)","descriptionShort":"The sum of all the money spent by the government on goods and services, as a percentage of GDP. It includes interest paid on government debt.","descriptionKey":"- The Public Finances in Modern History database is compiled by the International Monetary Fund from a wide range of historical sources and documents 200 years of government revenue, spending, deficits, and debt.\n- Depending on the country and year, the data may cover the central government only or the general government, which also includes state and local governments. Companion indicators in the dataset flag which coverage applies to each observation.","shortUnit":"%","unit":"% of GDP","timespan":"1800-2024","type":"Numeric","owidVariableId":1270194,"shortName":"expenditure","lastUpdated":"2026-06-12","nextUpdate":"2027-06-12","citationShort":"International Monetary Fund (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data","citationLong":"International Monetary Fund (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Government expenditure (% of GDP) – IMF” [dataset]. International Monetary Fund, “Public Finances in Modern History” [original data].","fullMetadata":"https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/1270194.metadata.json"},"1270194-annotations":{"titleShort":"1270194-annotations","titleLong":"1270194-annotations","type":"SeriesAnnotation","citationShort":" – processed by Our World in Data","citationLong":" – processed by Our World in Data. “1270194-annotations” [dataset].","fullMetadata":"https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/undefined.metadata.json"}},"dateDownloaded":"2026-07-29","activeFilters":{}}