IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adb/adbwps/2450.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Working Paper 324 - Public Investment, Time-to-Build, and Fiscal Stimulus

Author

Abstract

We study the macroeconomic impacts of public investment surges and fiscal policy adjustments to debt-financed public investment using a neoclassical growth model. We focus on two important issues that are pervasive in publicly financed investment projects in low-income countries: gestation delays and public investment inefficiencies. The model is estimated for a typical low-income country. Three central messages emerge. First, assumptions about which fiscal instruments may adjust to stabilize debt are crucial for the ultimate impacts of changes in fiscal policy. Covering the cost of the investment program and stabilizing debt with tax increases or spending cuts can make government investment contractionary at longer horizons, by crowding out private investment and consumption. Second, government investment spending delivers small, positive, labor and output responses in the presence of time-to-build delays. Third, high-yielding public investment can substantially raise output and consumption, and be self-financing in the long run. JEL classification: E62, H63

Suggested Citation

  • Lacina Balma & Daniel Gurara, 2019. "Working Paper 324 - Public Investment, Time-to-Build, and Fiscal Stimulus," Working Paper Series 2450, African Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:adb:adbwps:2450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/wps_no_324_public_investment_time-to-build_and_fiscal_stimulus_a_repaired.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen, 2017. "The Return to Foreign Aid," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(7), pages 998-1018, July.
    3. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2011. "What Fiscal Policy Is Effective at Zero Interest Rates?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2010, volume 25, pages 59-112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Acemoglu, Daron & Woodford, Michael (ed.), 2011. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2010," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226002125, July.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Filipe R. Campante & Guido Tabellini, 2008. "Why is Fiscal Policy Often Procyclical?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(5), pages 1006-1036, September.
    6. Graciela L. Kaminsky & Carmen M. Reinhart & Carlos A. Végh, 2005. "When It Rains, It Pours: Procyclical Capital Flows and Macroeconomic Policies," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 11-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. Vivien Foster & Cecilia Briceno-Garmendia, 2010. "Africa's Infrastructure : A Time for Transformation [Infrastructures africaines]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2692, December.
    9. Hafedh Bouakez & Michel Guillard & Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2017. "Public Investment, Time to Build, and the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 60-79, January.
    10. Forni, Lorenzo & Monteforte, Libero & Sessa, Luca, 2009. "The general equilibrium effects of fiscal policy: Estimates for the Euro area," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 559-585, April.
    11. Masao Ogaki & Jonathan D. Ostry & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1996. "Saving Behavior in Low- and Middle-Income Developing Countries: A Comparison," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(1), pages 38-71, March.
    12. Roberto Perotti, 2008. "In Search of the Transmission Mechanism of Fiscal Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 169-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Cogan, John F. & Cwik, Tobias & Taylor, John B. & Wieland, Volker, 2010. "New Keynesian versus old Keynesian government spending multipliers," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 281-295, March.
    14. Jordi Galí, 2008. "Introduction to Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework," Introductory Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework, Princeton University Press.
    15. Pritchett, Lant, 2000. "The Tyranny of Concepts: CUDIE (Cumulated, Depreciated, Investment Effort) Is Not Capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 361-384, December.
    16. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    17. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern97-1, March.
    18. Jessica Goldberg, 2016. "Kwacha Gonna Do? Experimental Evidence about Labor Supply in Rural Malawi," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 129-149, January.
    19. Mr. Douglas Laxton & Mr. Dirk V Muir & Mr. Michael Kumhof & Susanna Mursula & Charles Freedman, 2009. "Fiscal Stimulus to the Rescue? Short-Run Benefits and Potential Long-Run Costs of Fiscal Deficits," IMF Working Papers 2009/255, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Robert E. Hall, 2009. "By How Much Does GDP Rise If the Government Buys More Output?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 183-249.
    21. Agénor, Pierre-Richard, 2010. "A theory of infrastructure-led development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 932-950, May.
    22. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    23. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Rajkumar, Andrew Sunil & Swaroop, Vinaya, 2008. "Public spending and outcomes: Does governance matter?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 96-111, April.
    25. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    26. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, December.
    27. Mr. Shanaka J Peiris & Mr. Magnus Saxegaard, 2007. "An Estimated DSGE Model for Monetary Policy Analysis in Low-Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 2007/282, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, March.
    29. Christophe Hurlin, 2005. "The productivy Effects of Public Capital in Developing Countries," Post-Print halshs-00257440, HAL.
    30. SENBETA, Sisay Regassa, 2011. "A small open economy new Keynesian DSGE model for a foreign exchange constrained economy," Working Papers 2011004, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    31. Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Rafael A Portillo & Mr. Edward F Buffie & Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2012. "Public Investment, Growth, and Debt Sustainability: Putting together the Pieces," IMF Working Papers 2012/144, International Monetary Fund.
    32. Charles Wyplosz, 2007. "Debt Sustainability Assessment: The IMF Approach and Alternatives," IHEID Working Papers 03-2007, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    33. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    34. Yisheng Bu, 2006. "Fixed capital stock depreciation in developing countries: Some evidence from firm level data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5), pages 881-901.
    35. Senbeta, Sisay, 2011. "A small open economy New Keynesian model for a foreign exchange constrained economy," MPRA Paper 29996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Stähler, Nikolai & Thomas, Carlos, 2012. "FiMod — A DSGE model for fiscal policy simulations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 239-261.
    2. Eric M. Leeper & Nora Traum & Todd B. Walker, 2017. "Clearing Up the Fiscal Multiplier Morass," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2409-2454, August.
    3. 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.
    4. Lemoine, Matthieu & Lindé, Jesper, 2023. "Fiscal stimulus in liquidity traps: Conventional or unconventional policies?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Lacina Balma & Daniel Gurara & Mthuli Ncube, 2019. "Working Paper 320 - Hands Off Oil Revenues? Public Investment and Cash Transfers," Working Paper Series 2446, African Development Bank.
    6. Gregory E. Givens, 2022. "Unemployment, Partial Insurance, And The Multiplier Effects Of Government Spending," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 571-599, May.
    7. Eduardo Garzón Espinosa & Bibiana Medialdea García & Esteban Cruz Hidalgo, 2021. "Fiscal Policy Approaches: An Inquiring Look From The Modern Monetary Theory," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 999-1022, October.
    8. Aliya Algozhina, 2012. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interactions in an Emerging Open Economy: a Non-Ricardian DSGE Approach," FIW Working Paper series 094, FIW, revised Dec 2012.
    9. Richard McManus & F. Gulcin Ozkan & Dawid Trzeciakiewicz, 2014. "Self-defeating austerity at the zero lower bound," Discussion Papers 14/24, Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Marco Del Negro & Gauti Eggertsson & Andrea Ferrero & Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, 2017. "The Great Escape? A Quantitative Evaluation of the Fed's Liquidity Facilities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 824-857, March.
    11. Christopher Erceg & Jesper Lindé, 2014. "Is There A Fiscal Free Lunch In A Liquidity Trap?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 73-107, February.
    12. Eric Sims & Jonathan Wolff, 2018. "The Output And Welfare Effects Of Government Spending Shocks Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1403-1435, August.
    13. Senbeta, Sisay, 2011. "How applicable are the new keynesian DSGE models to a typical low-income economy?," MPRA Paper 30931, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Emi Nakamura & J?n Steinsson, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 753-792, March.
    15. Lorant Kaszab, 2016. "Rule-of-Thumb Consumers and Labor Tax Cut Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(3), pages 353-390, September.
    16. Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S. & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2018. "Government spending effects in low-income countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 201-219.
    17. Born, Benjamin & Juessen, Falko & Müller, Gernot J., 2013. "Exchange rate regimes and fiscal multipliers," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 446-465.
    18. Gunter Coenen & Roland Straub & Mathias Trabandt, 2012. "Fiscal Policy and the Great Recession in the Euro Area," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 71-76, May.
    19. Furlanetto, Francesco, 2011. "Fiscal stimulus and the role of wage rigidity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 512-527, April.
    20. Bhattarai, Saroj & Eggertsson, Gauti B. & Schoenle, Raphael, 2018. "Is increased price flexibility stabilizing? Redux," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 66-82.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public investment; time-to-build; fiscal stimulus;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:adb:adbwps:2450. 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: Adeleke Oluwole Salami (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afdbgci.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.