Public Consumption

Public consumption is the value of final goods and services purchased by the government to provide public services, measured within a country's borders during a given period. As a core component of GDP, it is widely used to assess the size of the public sector and the contribution of government spending to economic activity. This indicator is part of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Latin Macro Watch for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Coverage

Public consumption is available for 16 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual and quarterly frequency, covering 1990 to 2026. Values are offered in millions of domestic currency and millions of USD, as a share of GDP (% of GDP), PPP adjusted, at constant prices using the national accounts deflator, and seasonally adjusted, with quarter-over-quarter (QoQ %) and year-over-year (YoY %) transformations. Where applicable, quarterly values are reported as four-quarter trailing sums consistent with published annual aggregates.

Sources

Data are drawn from official national statistics agencies, including INEGI - Mexico, INDEC - Argentina, Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática de Perú, Instituto Nacional de Estadística Guatemala, and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. The Latin Macro Watch harmonizes these national accounts series so researchers and policymakers can compare government spending across the region on data.iadb.org.

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Format	CSV
Language	en
Country	Argentina Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia El Salvador Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Panama Uruguay Venezuela Barbados Paraguay Peru Suriname
Data notes	What does Public Consumption measure? Public consumption is the value of final goods and services purchased by the government to provide public services, measured within a country's borders during a given period. It is a core component of GDP. How many countries and which frequencies and periods are covered? Public consumption is available for 16 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual and quarterly frequency, covering 1990 to 2026. What units and transformations are available? Values are available in millions of domestic currency and millions of USD, as a share of GDP, PPP adjusted, at constant prices using the national accounts deflator, and seasonally adjusted, with quarter-over-quarter (QoQ %) and year-over-year (YoY %) transformations. Where does the public consumption data come from? Data are drawn from official national statistics agencies, including INEGI - Mexico, INDEC - Argentina, Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática de Perú, Instituto Nacional de Estadística Guatemala, and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, then harmonized by the IDB Latin Macro Watch. What are typical uses of this indicator? It is used to gauge the size of the public sector, assess the contribution of government spending to GDP, build national accounts analyses, and compare fiscal policy stances across Latin American and Caribbean economies. How do I cite this indicator? Cite it as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin Macro Watch — "Public Consumption". data.iadb.org/dataset/latin-macro-watch-dataset.