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Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences with Public Capital

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  • Germán Cubas

    (Banco Central del Uruguay)

Abstract

This paper offers new evidence on the sources of cross-country income differences by investigating the role public capital in development accounting. I explicitly measure private and public capital stocks, and I find large differences in both types of capital across countries. Moreover, differences in private capital are larger than the ones I find for total capital for the richest and poorest countries. The methodology I use implies a share of public capital in output of at most 10%. My findings indicate that differences in capital stocks can not account for a substantial part of the observed dispersion in income across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Germán Cubas, 2010. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences with Public Capital," Documentos de trabajo 2010014, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    • Handle: RePEc:bku:doctra:2010014
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    File URL: https://www.bcu.gub.uy/Estadisticas-e-Indicadores/Documentos%20de%20Trabajo/14.2010.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & Dinh, Hinh T., 2013. "Public policy and industrial transformation in the process of development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6405, The World Bank.
    2. Chakraborty Shankha & Dabla-Norris Era, 2011. "The Quality of Public Investment," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-29, August.
    3. Turner, Chad & Tamura, Robert & Schoellman, Todd & Mulholland, Sean, 2011. "Estimating Physical Capital and Land for States and Sectors of the United States, 1850-2000," MPRA Paper 32847, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income differences; Public capital; Development Accounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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