IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v33y2007i2p207-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diagnosing the Productivity Effect of Public Capital in the Private Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Chu-Ping C. Vijverberg

    (Wichita State University)

  • Wim P. M. Vijverberg

    (University of Texas at Dallas)

Abstract

Does public capital contribute to the productivity in the private sector? If so, which part of the private sector benefits most? Is public capital a substitute for or a complement of labor and private capital? This paper addresses these questions with both cost and profit function models estimated on U.S. time series data of the private sector and two of its subsectors. It pays special attention to nonstationarity in the data, to endogeneity in the price variables, and to the statistical and economic significance of the public capital effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Chu-Ping C. Vijverberg & Wim P. M. Vijverberg, 2007. "Diagnosing the Productivity Effect of Public Capital in the Private Sector," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 207-230, Spring.
  • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:33:y:2007:i:2:p:207-230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume33/V33N2P207_230.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    2. Gramlich, Edward M, 1994. "Infrastructure Investment: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 1176-1196, September.
    3. John A. Tatom, 1991. "Public capital and private sector performance," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 3-15.
    4. Alicia H. Munnell, 1990. "Why has productivity growth declined? Productivity and public investment," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 3-22.
    5. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    6. Rebelo, Sergio, 1991. "Long-Run Policy Analysis and Long-Run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 500-521, June.
    7. John G. Fernald, 1999. "Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 619-638, June.
    8. Sturm, Jan Egbert & de Haan, Jakob, 1995. "Is public expenditure really productive?: New evidence for the USA and The Netherlands," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 60-72, January.
    9. Shunji Oniki, 2000. "Testing the Induced Innovation Hypothesis in a Cointegrating Regression Model," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 544-554, December.
    10. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1990. "New Evidence on the Monetary Transmission Mechanism," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(1), pages 149-214.
    11. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-836, July.
    12. Ratner, Jonathan B., 1983. "Government capital and the production function for U.S. private output," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 213-217.
    13. Demetriades, Panicos O & Mamuneas, Theofanis P, 2000. "Intertemporal Output and Employment Effects of Public Infrastructure Capital: Evidence from 12 OECD Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 687-712, July.
    14. Morrison, Catherine J & Schwartz, Amy Ellen, 1996. "State Infrastructure and Productive Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1095-1111, December.
    15. Wim P. M. Vijverberg & Chu-Ping C. Vijverberg & Janet L. Gamble, 1997. "Public Capital And Private Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 267-278, May.
    16. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J & Porter, Robert H, 1996. "The Effect of Public Capital in State-Level Production Functions Reconsidered," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 177-180, February.
    17. Lynde, Catherine & Richmond, James, 1992. "The Role of Public Capital in Production," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 37-44, February.
    18. Phillips, Peter C B & Ouliaris, S, 1990. "Asymptotic Properties of Residual Based Tests for Cointegration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 165-193, January.
    19. Berndt, Ernst R & Savin, N Eugene, 1975. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing in Singular Equation Systems with Autoregressive Disturbances," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(5-6), pages 937-957, Sept.-Nov.
    20. Nigel Spence & Antonis Rovolis, 2002. "Duality theory and cost function analysis in a regional context: the impact of public infrastructure capital in the Greek regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 36(1), pages 55-78.
    21. Ram, Rati & Ramsey, David D., 1989. "Government capital and private output in the United States : Additional evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 223-226, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fu, Feng-Cheng & Vijverberg, Chu-Ping C. & Vijverberg, Wim P., 2004. "Public Infrastructure as a Determinant of Intertemporal and Interregional Productive Performance in China," IZA Discussion Papers 1019, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Wim Vijverberg & Feng-Cheng Fu & Chu-Ping Vijverberg, 2011. "Public infrastructure as a determinant of productive performance in China," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 91-111, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Silvia Bertarelli, 2006. "Public capital and growth," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 361-398.
    2. Alfredo M. Pereira & Jorge M. Andraz, 2013. "On The Economic Effects Of Public Infrastructure Investment: A Survey Of The International Evidence," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 1-37, December.
    3. Marie-Ange VEGANZONES-VAROUDAKIS, 2000. "Infrastructures, investissement et croissance : un bilan de dix années de recherches," Working Papers 200007, CERDI.
    4. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2014. "What Have We Learned From Three Decades Of Research On The Productivity Of Public Capital?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 889-916, December.
    5. Holmgren, Johan & Merkel, Axel, 2017. "Much ado about nothing? – A meta-analysis of the relationship between infrastructure and economic growth," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 13-26.
    6. Valter Di Giacinto & Giacinto Micucci & Pasqualino Montanaro, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Infrastructures: A Literature Review and Empirical Analysis on the Case of Italy," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    7. Wei Zou & Fen Zhang & Ziyin Zhuang & Hairong Song, 2008. "Transport Infrastructure, Growth, and Poverty Alleviation: Empirical Analysis of China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 9(2), pages 345-371, November.
    8. Hurlin, Christophe & Minea, Alexandru, 2013. "Is public capital really productive? A methodological reappraisal," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 228(1), pages 122-130.
    9. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2009. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Regression Analysis," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0912, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    10. Fu, Feng-Cheng & Vijverberg, Chu-Ping C. & Vijverberg, Wim P., 2004. "Public Infrastructure as a Determinant of Intertemporal and Interregional Productive Performance in China," IZA Discussion Papers 1019, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Andreas Stephan, 2003. "Assessing the contribution of public capital to private production: Evidence from the German manufacturing sector," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 399-417.
    12. Timilsina,Govinda R. & Hochman,Gal & Song,Ze, 2020. "Infrastructure, Economic Growth, and Poverty : A Review," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9258, The World Bank.
    13. Macdonald, Ryan, 2008. "An Examination of Public Capital's Role in Production," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2008050e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    14. Palakiyèm Kpemoua, 2016. "Analyse de l'impact des infrastructures de transport sur la croissance économique du Togo," Working Papers hal-01389698, HAL.
    15. Torstein Bye & Alexandra Katz, 1995. "Returns to Publicly Owned Transport Infrastructure Investment . A Cost Function/Cost Share Approach for Norway, 1971-1991," Discussion Papers 154, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    16. Ward Romp & Jakob De Haan, 2007. "Public Capital and Economic Growth: A Critical Survey," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(S1), pages 6-52, April.
    17. Fedderke, J.W. & Bogetic, Z., 2009. "Infrastructure and Growth in South Africa: Direct and Indirect Productivity Impacts of 19 Infrastructure Measures," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1522-1539, September.
    18. Vitor Carvalho & Manuel M. F. Martins, 2011. "Investment and output effects of fiscal consolidations in a new-Keynesian DSGE model for the Euro Area: composition matters?," EcoMod2011 3246, EcoMod.
    19. Angel De la Fuente, 2010. "Infrastructures and productivity: an updated survey," Working Papers 1018, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    20. Nigel Spence & Antonis Rovolis, 2002. "Duality theory and cost function analysis in a regional context: the impact of public infrastructure capital in the Greek regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 36(1), pages 55-78.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:33:y:2007:i:2:p:207-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.