Question for any economists reading this.

[randomness]

Are these numbers comparable?

General government consolidated gross debt as a percentage of GDP, from Eurostat.

versus

State and Local Government Spending and Debt in the United States, Amounts in percent GDP, from usgovernmentspending.com.

If they are not, can you suggest sources with comparable numbers, or explain why this isn't the right comparison to be making, etc.?

The basic point is that I'm trying to do direct comparisons of debt/GDP ratios between EU member states on the one hand and US states on the other.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Comments

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

I'm obviously not an economist, but I would be hesitant comparing debt that consolidates debt from spending that in the US would be national spending with debt that in the US would be state spending (in the European case, where I believe that the EU wide budget is still relatively small), with only considering the state/local spending in the US case. Wikipedia says that the EU's budget is on the order of 120 billion Euros, compared to budgets of roughly 800 billion Euros for France and the UK (each). I wonder if it would be useful to include a pro rata share of the federal debt in considering state indebtedness--after all, California has to pay for its state debt and spending after its people pay federal taxes as well. The more I think about it, the more I think that there probably isn't an apples to apples comparison available--you probably have to do an apple to pear comparison on the one hand, and a quince to apple comparison on the other, and hope to make something out of the two.