Afonso, AntónioSchuknecht, Ludger2023-01-172023-01-172019Afonso, António and Ludger Schuknecht .(2019). “How 'big' should government be?“. Economics and Business Letters, Vol. 8, No. 2: pp. 85-962254-4380http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/26925We assess how “big” government should reasonably be in a number of advanced countries. First, we will link the recent findings of Data Envelope Analysis on efficient public expenditure with the question of the size of the government. Second, we report descriptive analysis of various government performance indicators in relation to public expenditure to provide indications of overall “optimal” spending across spending categories. In principle, the highest savings potential is in the biggest expenditure categories, public consumption and social expenditure.engGovernment SizeGovernment EfficiencyDEAAdvanced Economiesjournal article10.17811/ebl.8.2.2019.85-96