Economic Interventionism Under Pandemic Conditions: Similarities and Differences on EU Level

Abstract

The aim of this article is to classify 25 EU member states into homogeneous groups based on the relative shares of GDP of eight subgroups of government expenditures on economic affairs (according to the Classification of the Functions of Government - COFOG) and thus compare the extent of their governments’ intervention in economic affairs. The homogeneous groups were defined by means of a non-hierarchical cluster analysis (K-means) method using the Euclidean distance as a measure of dissimilarity. The results of the clustering of the 25 EU member states by government expenditure by economic function (according to COFOG) reveals the similarities and differences among these countries in terms of their economic interventionism. They also define which economic affairs need government intervention to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.