Observations on big governments by Dani Rodrik

as reported by Andrew Leonard in How the U.S. screwed up globalization:
"In Chapter 1, "Markets and States," Rodrik discusses the "amazing fact" that the richest countries also have the biggest governments: "with very few exceptions, the more developed an economy, the greater the share of its resources that is consumed by the public sector." His explanation: efficiently functioning markets require strong government institutions and oversight and intervention.

But there's another correlation that's even more interesting. Rodrik found himself befuddled by the work of Yale political scientist David Cameron, who had discovered that the economies with the largest governments were also those that "were the most exposed to international markets." "