by Dan Mitchell | Mar 7, 2023 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Which European nation has the costliest welfare state? Greece would be a good guess, but it’s only in second place. At the top of the list, according to OECD data, is France, where government spending consumes nearly 60 percent of the nation’s economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 19, 2023 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
It is an understatement to declare that fiscal policy in France is terrible. The highest burden of government spending in Europe.The third-highest level of pension spending in the OECD.One of the biggest long-run fiscal...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 2, 2022 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I often cite the OECD’s data on “actual individual consumption” to show that the average American enjoys higher living standards than the average European. In this clip from a recent presentation, I compare the United States and France. I’m...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 26, 2022 | Big Government, Blogs
Back in 2012, I endorsed a wretched socialist, Francois Hollande, to be president of France. I knew he was terrible, but the supposedly right-wing incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, also was a proponent of dirigisme. As I wrote at the time, “it’s always better to...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
I periodically write about the importance of long-run growth and about the importance of convergence (whether poorer countries are catching up with richer countries, as suggested by theory). This is because such data, especially over decades,...
