Government Size

[Sovereign Wilderness]

Hello,

I'm curious about how "Government Size" works in the game. My own nation has recently bumped up from "Enormous" to a "a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, outspoken morass", yet it only has a 9.9 rating for that statistic. The nation ranked just above me in my region for Government Size has a 15.52 rating, and yet is described as having a "relatively small" government.

Is this some sort of bug, or am I just woefully ignorant as to how Government Size is calculated in the game? I would just like to understand better, but if that's not possible, I understand.

Thank you for your time.

[Merconitonitopia]

note -- government expenditure as percent of GDP is not relevant, I'm lower than some of these despite being a morass. however, tax rate is constant. edit: not quite.

[Sovereign Wilderness]

Ahh, I see...so the descriptor is tied to the tax rate. Thank you for responding. Do you happen to know what goes into determining the Government Size statistic, then?

[Merconitonitopia]

how much you fund stuff.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

Medium sized government with a 98% tax rate here. I suspect the descriptor is determined by either a hidden stat, or some combination of stats, because it doesn't seem to match any one that I can see.

[Christ Triumphant]

Medium sized government with a 98% tax rate here. I suspect the descriptor is determined by either a hidden stat, or some combination of stats, because it doesn't seem to match any one that I can see.

Yeah, your case kind of muddles things... Maybe you're right about the combination of stats.

[Merconitonitopia]

damn, there goes my hypothesis.
perhaps expenditure as percent of GDP would play a role too, then. Pencil Sharpeners 2 has 8.8% government.
maybe it's determined by tax rate and expenditure, as there is obviously an uncertain correlation with expenditure and size descriptor, as well as a clear but not absolute correlation with tax rate. although that would be weird as government expenditure is largely determined by tax rate.

I'm guessing it's an amalgam of things, or it's entirely behind the scenes.

[Sovereign Wilderness]

Well, thanks everyone for your answers and theories. Looks like I'm not the only one in the dark, then. I'll just keep an eye on things and see if I can notice any patterns...

Edit:
Further clues: Government Size and descriptors began skyrocketing when I began banning things. I'm going for as Primitive a nation as possible (in top 1% now), so I have bans on Automobiles, Airplanes, Internet, Video Games, etc. I also began dismantling all industry. However, I have a low Authoritarianism, so I'm guessing it's not that.