Given these figures, it could be argued that Latvia has had more fiscal space to devote to health system investment than other OECD economies. The proportion of GDP to the public sector in Latvia is 36.5%, much lower than the average of all European OECD countries (excluding Turkey) at 45.6% in 2012 (OECD, 2015d) and Latvia spends 9% of public expenditure in health, a smaller share than any OECD countries (Figure 1.13). At the other end of the spectrum, the share is over 20% in New Zealand, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States.