Public Expenditure

Expenditure incurred by public administrations under their respective budgets or through extra-budgetary appropriations.

Public expenditure is the total expenditure made by a country's public sector. Public expenditure includes investment expenditure, operating expenditure and expenditure for servicing both domestic and foreign debt, i.e. interest payments and capital amortization.

When public spending is greater than income, a deficit is produced, in which case the State must resort to public debt to finance its spending.

In the following link you can see a comparison of government expenditure by country.

Related terms
Debt | Deficit | Public Debt | Expenditure | Income | Budget | Public Sector