This study examines how democratization and authoritarian reversal affect the composition of government spending, including education, military, health, R&D, final government consumption, and gross savings. While there is a substantial body of literature on this topic, most studies narrowly focus on education, military, and health spending, highlighting the effect of democratization while overlooking that of authoritarian reversal. Employing a non-parametric panel-matching method to analyze data from more than 140 countries from 1960 to 2023, we offer a more robust empirical strategy for estimating the causal effects of democratization and authoritarian reversal, compared to conventional approaches. Our findings are mostly consistent with existing research: the positive effect of democratization on government final consumption and health expenditures and the negative effect of authoritarian reversal on government final consumption, with the persistent effects of both types of regime transitions over time.