Turning to ownership shares, the comparability of country statistics is compromised in several ways. First, OECD countries did not routinely report data on the value of output or assets or the size of employment by public enterprises.[130] For the OECD countries shown in Table 2A.2,1 rely on the data for many OECD countries in the 1970s and 1980s, assembled by the economist Branko Milanovic, for output and employment shares of “state-owned enterprises in commercial activities.” In Milanovic’s data, “government services proper” are excluded; this refers to government services supplied free of charge, from defense and policing to health and education.
Second, for Comecon countries we have two sources on ownership shares. One is, again, Milanovic, as shown in the table. Alternatively, there is an official source, because such figures were also compiled and reported by Comecon statisticians, and they too are shown in the table. Their coverage table 2A.1. Measures of state capacity across countries: Fiscal ratios in 1980
| (A) OECD countries, general government current receipts, percent of: | GDP | (B) Comecon countries, current government revenues, percent of: | NMP | GDP |
| United States | 31.0 | Czechoslovakia | 63.5 | 46.6 |
| Canada | 36.7 | East Germany | 70.0 | 51.4 |
| Iceland | 37.2 | Soviet Union | 66.0 | 48.4 |
| Denmark | 48.0 | Hungary | 72.1 | 52.9 |
| Norway | 51.2 | Bulgaria | 64.9 | 47.6 |
| Sweden | 51.7 | Poland | 62.8 | 46.0 |
| France | 46.0 | |||
| Netherlands | 49.0 | |||
| Belgium | 46.1 | |||
| Austria | 47.1 | |||
| Japan | 27.7 | |||
| Italy | 33.0 | |||
| Finland | 43.6 | |||
| United Kingdom | 37.0 | |||
| Spain | 28.5 | |||
| Portugal | 26.8 | |||
| Unweighted mean | 40.6 | Unweighted mean | 66.6 | 48.8 |
Note. The countries shown in the table are ranked in declining order of their real GDP per head (in dollars and international prices of 1990) according to the Total Economy Database (January 2014) of the Conference Board at http://www.con ference-board.org/data/economydatabase/. For 1980, the unweighted mean for the OECD countries shown was $13,929, and for Comecon countries it was $6,603. The real GDP per head of the poorest OECD country, Portugal, was $8,044; that of the richest Comecon country, Czechoslovakia, was $7,982. Thus, the two groups of countries do not overlap.
Sources: (A) OECD countries: Economic Outlook, no. 108 (December 2020), https:// www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/data/oecd-economic-outlook-statistics-and-pro-jections_eo-data-en, gives general government current receipts as a percentage of GDP (the sum of final goods and services at market prices) (series YRGQ). (B) Comecon countries: current government revenues (taxes, levies, fees, fines, and enterprise incomes) are calculated in percent of NMP (net material product, the sum of final goods and intermediate services at prevailing prices) from United Nations, Statistical Yearbook 1981, Tables 26 and 46. Shares of net material product are then recalculated as shares of GDP, based on the observation that the Soviet GDP for 1980 reported by the government statistical agency was 36 percent greater than NMP utilized (Goskomstat, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1990g., 5). The same conversion factor is applied to all the Comecon countries. Unweighted averages are then calculated for this table from the figures shown.
| TABLE 2A.2. Measures of state capacity across countries^ Productive or com^ mercial activity under state ownership around ^^^^ | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ^A^ OECD countries | |||
| Output of public corporations^ percent of GDP | Year | ||
| United States | 1.3 | (1983) | |
| West Germany | 10.7 | (1982) | |
| Denmark | 6.3 | (1974) | |
| France | 16.5 | (1982) | |
| Netherlands | 3.6 | (1971-1973) | |
| Australia | 9.4 | (1978/79) | |
| Austria | 14.5 | (1978/79) | |
| Italy | 14.0 | (1982) | |
| United Kingdom | 10.7 | (1983) | |
| New Zealand | 12.0 | (1987) | |
| Spain | 4.1 | (1979) | |
| Greece | 6.1 | (1979) | |
| Portugal | 9.7 | (1976) | |
| Unweighted mean | 9.1 | . . . | |
| (B) Comecon countries and China | |||
| Socialist sector, percent of net material product | State-owned enterprises, percent of net material product (various yearsЪ | ||
| (1980) (col. 1) | (col. 2) | Year (col.3) | |
| Czechoslovakia | 99.4 | 99.7 | (1986) |
| East Germany | 99.5 | 96.5 | (1982) |
| Soviet Union | 100 | 96.0 | (1985) |
| Hungary | 96.5 | 69.8 | (1980) |
| Bulgaria | 99.96 | . . . | . . . |
| Poland | 84.3 | 83.4 | (1980) |
130
The problem of comparing “the size of the public sector” across the OECD is further discussed by Lanfranchi and Perrin, Measuring Public Employment in OECD Countries.