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Bottlenecks in ramping up public investment

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Abstract

A windfall in a developing economy with capital scarcity and investment adjustment costs facing a temporary windfall should be used to give more consumption to poorer present generations and to speed up development by ramping up public investment and paying off debt taking due account of the increasing inefficiency as investment gets ramped up. The optimal strategy requires negative genuine saving; the permanent income requires zero genuine saving. The optimal real consumption increments are smaller once one allows for absorption constraints resulting from Dutch disease and sluggish adjustment of ‘home-grown’ public capital. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

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  • Frederick Ploeg, 2012. "Bottlenecks in ramping up public investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 509-538, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:19:y:2012:i:4:p:509-538
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-012-9225-0
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. What should a country do with a windfall?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-07-06 19:07:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Agénor, Pierre-Richard, 2016. "Optimal fiscal management of commodity price shocks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 183-196.
    2. Roberto Iacono, 2018. "The Dutch disease revisited: absorption constraint and learning by doing," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 17(1), pages 61-85, March.
    3. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Macro policy responses to natural resource windfalls and the crash in commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 263-282.
    4. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Venables, Anthony J., 2013. "Absorbing a windfall of foreign exchange: Dutch disease dynamics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 229-243.
    5. Anthony J. Venables & Samuel E. Wills, 2016. "Resource Funds: Stabilising, Parking, and Inter-generational Transfer," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(suppl_2), pages 20-40.
    6. Presbitero, Andrea F., 2016. "Too much and too fast? Public investment scaling-up and absorptive capacity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 17-31.
    7. Mr. Adrian Alter & Matteo Ghilardi & Ms. Dalia S Hakura, 2015. "Public Investment in a Developing Country Facing Resource Depletion," IMF Working Papers 2015/236, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Carpantier, J.-F. & Vermeulen, W.N., 2018. "Emergence of sovereign wealth funds," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-21.
    9. Araujo, Juliana D. & Li, Bin Grace & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2016. "Current account norms in natural resource rich and capital scarce economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 144-156.
    10. Samuel Wills, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Responses to Oil Discoveries," Discussion Papers 1408, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Apr 2014.
    11. Ton S van den Bremer & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2013. "Managing and Harnessing Volatile Oil Windfalls," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(1), pages 130-167, April.
    12. Wills, Samuel, 2018. "Leave the volatility fund alone: Principles for managing oil wealth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 332-352.
    13. Emmanuel Pinto Moreira & Barış Alpaslan, 2023. "Algeria: A three‐sector macrofiscal model for debt sustainability and growth policy analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 499-524, February.
    14. Melina, Giovanni & Yang, Shu-Chun S. & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2016. "Debt sustainability, public investment, and natural resources in developing countries: The DIGNAR model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 630-649.
    15. Rick Van der Ploeg, 2016. "Macro Policy Responses To Natural Resource Windfalls," OxCarre Working Papers 178, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    16. Gurara, Daniel & Kpodar, Kangni & Presbitero, Andrea F. & Tessema, Dawit, 2021. "On the capacity to absorb public investment: How much is too much?☆," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    17. Sayadi, Mohammad & Khoshkalam Khosroshahi, Musa, 2020. "Assessing Alternative Investment Policies in a Resource-Rich Capital-Scarce Country: Results from a DSGE analysis for Iran," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    18. Samuel Wills, 2015. "Seven Principles for Managing Resource Wealth," Economics Series Working Papers OxCarre Research Paper 15, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    19. Issouf Samaké & Ms. Priscilla S Muthoora & Mr. Bruno Versailles, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability, Public Investment, and Growth in Natural Resource-Rich, Low-Income Countries: The Case of Cameroon," IMF Working Papers 2013/144, International Monetary Fund.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal management of windfalls; Economic development; Capital scarcity; Public capital; PIMI; Investment adjustment costs; Absorption constraints; Genuine saving; Dutch disease; E60; F34; F35; F43; H21; H63; O11; Q33;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • Q33 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Resource Booms (Dutch Disease)

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