National Government Revenue Per Capita and Expenditure Per Capita

This segment deals with national government revenue and expenditure in per capita, exclusive of "extraordinary" expenditures financed by direct foreign aid or loans.

"defense expenditure / total national expenditure" contains the ratio of national defense expenditure to total national expenditure.

The term "national government" should be construed as referring exclusively to central government. Thus, monies collected and dispersed locally by national government agencies (as in certain unitary systems) are, wherever possible, excluded. Revenue and expenditure data, particularly when expressed in U.S. dollar equivalents, are peculiarly susceptible to both random and systematic error. Such data contained in the Cross-National Times-Series Data Archive file are no exception, and should be used with appropriate caution. The possibility of error could, of course, have been substantially reduced had conversion to a common currency unit not been attempted, but the resultant lack of comparability would severely limit the utility of the data in question. In general, official rates of exchange are employed only when deviations therefrom are presumed to be minimal. Otherwise, free (occasionally black) market rates are employed, except in cases of such extreme fluctuation as to preclude the assembly of meaningful series. Needless to say, the overwhelming proportion of data omitted for this reason occurs in the 1919-1939 period. Since the British pound sterling was the principal basis of international exchange in the pre-World War I period, most data for the period were assembled accordingly and were converted into dollar equivalents at the rate of 4.87 dollars per pound. Some data for 1.919-1939 and most data for the post-World War II period were assembled by means of direct conversion to dollar equivalents. It should be noted that here, as elsewhere, there are no "base-year" figures; in other words, there is no adjustment for incremental inflation/ deflation in either the British pound (before 1919) or the U.S. dollar (after 1919). Since 1973, IMF average period market rates have been utilized wherever feasible.