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Public expenditure in the UK: how measures matter

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  • Stuart N. Soroka
  • Christopher Wlezien
  • Iain McLean

Abstract

Summary. Studying spending over time requires reliable data. It is not clear that such data exist in the UK, however. The two published sources of functional spending numbers—the Office for National Statistics's ‘blue book’ and Her Majesty's Treasury's Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA)—rely on estimates of past spending, using a link year method, rather than recalculating actual spending figures when functional definitions change. We assess the various measures of spending in the UK. Specifically, we do two things. First, we present a new, third, set of spending numbers applying temporally consistent functional definitions to PESA microdata. Second, we compare the three measures. Our analyses indicate that the Office for National Statistics and PESA data differ quite markedly, especially for certain functions, i.e. in some cases the two measures imply completely different histories. The differences between the original PESA data and our new measures are less pronounced on average, though significant differences are evident, especially year by year.

Suggested Citation

  • Stuart N. Soroka & Christopher Wlezien & Iain McLean, 2006. "Public expenditure in the UK: how measures matter," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(2), pages 255-271, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:169:y:2006:i:2:p:255-271
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2006.00397.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Charlotte Burns & Paul Tobin, 2016. "The Impact of the Economic Crisis on European Union Environmental Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 1485-1494, November.
    2. Bryan D. Jones & Frank R. Baumgartner & Christian Breunig & Christopher Wlezien & Stuart Soroka & Martial Foucault & Abel François & Christoffer Green‐Pedersen & Chris Koski & Peter John & Peter B. Mo, 2009. "A General Empirical Law of Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 855-873, October.

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