IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/ccsowp/0020.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is public expenditure really productive? New evidence for the US and the Netherlands

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Egbert Sturm
  • Jakob de Haan,

Abstract

This paper reviews empirical evidence for the United States on the impact of the public capital stock on productivity. On econometric grounds it is argued that most previous research is flawed. If the well-known model of Aschauer is estimated in first differences - which is necessary as the variables used are neither stationary nor cointegrated - the model breaks down entirely. Similar results are found for the Netherlands.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Egbert Sturm & Jakob de Haan,, 1994. "Is public expenditure really productive? New evidence for the US and the Netherlands," Working Papers 20, Centre for Economic Research, University of Groningen and University of Twente.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:ccsowp:0020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eco.rug.nl/ccso/zip-file/ccso20.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    2. Banerjee, Anindya & Dolado, Juan J. & Galbraith, John W. & Hendry, David, 1993. "Co-integration, Error Correction, and the Econometric Analysis of Non-Stationary Data," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288107, December.
    3. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, 1992. "Public-Sector Capital and the Productivity Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 4122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. McMillin, W Douglas & Smyth, David J, 1994. "A Multivariate Time Series Analysis of the United States Aggregate Production Function," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 659-673.
    5. Ernst R. Berndt & Bengt Hansson, 1991. "Measuring the Contribution of Public Infrastructure Capital in Sweden," NBER Working Papers 3842, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert Ford & Pierre Poret, 1991. "Infrastructure and Private-Sector Productivity," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 91, OECD Publishing.
    7. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    8. Evans, Paul & Karras, Georgios, 1994. "Is government capital productive? Evidence from a panel of seven countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 271-279.
    9. John A. Tatom, 1991. "Public capital and private sector performance," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 3-15.
    10. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J., 1992. "The contribution of publicly provided inputs to states' economies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-241, June.
    11. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119, December.
    12. Pinnoi, Nat, 1994. "Public infrastructure and private production measuring relative contributions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 127-148, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    15. Randall W. Eberts, 1986. "Estimating the contribution of urban public infrastructure to regional growth," Working Papers (Old Series) 8610, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    16. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simon, 1993. "Does public capital affect private sector performance? : An analysis of the Spanish case, 1964-1988," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 179-185, July.
    17. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    18. Alicia H. Munnell, 1992. "Policy Watch: Infrastructure Investment and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 189-198, Fall.
    19. Leybourne, S J & McCabe, B P M, 1994. "A Consistent Test for a Unit Root," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(2), pages 157-166, April.
    20. Eisner, Robert, 1994. "Real government saving and the future," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 111-126, March.
    21. Leah M. Cook & Alicia H. Munnell, 1990. "How does public infrastructure affect regional economic performance?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 11-33.
    22. 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.
    23. Molinas, Cesar, 1986. "A Note on Spurious Regressions with Integrated Moving Average Errors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 48(3), pages 379-382, August.
    24. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    25. Robert Eisner, 1991. "Infrastructure and regional economic performance: comment," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 47-58.
    26. Harris, R I D, 1992. "Small Sample Testing for Unit Roots," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(4), pages 615-625, November.
    27. Dolado, Juan J & Jenkinson, Tim & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simon, 1990. "Cointegration and Unit Roots," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 249-273.
    28. 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.
    29. Shah, Anwar, 1992. "Dynamics of Public Infrastructure, Industrial Productivity and Profitability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 28-36, February.
    30. Lynde, Catherine & Richmond, J, 1993. "Public Capital and Long-Run Costs in U.K. Manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 880-893, July.
    31. James G. MacKinnon, 1990. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests," Working Paper 1227, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    32. 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)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    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. Marie-Ange VEGANZONES-VAROUDAKIS, 2000. "Infrastructures, investissement et croissance : un bilan de dix années de recherches," Working Papers 200007, CERDI.
    7. Pedro R. D. Bom & Jenny Ligthart, 2008. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2206, CESifo.
    8. Bernard Fingleton & Miguel Gómez-Antonio, 2009. "Analysing the impact of public capital stock using the NEG wage equation: a panel data approach," Working Papers 0912, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Sylvie Charlot & Virginie Piguet & Bertrand Schmitt, 2003. "Capital public et productivite quels effets sur les disparites regionales ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 113(6), pages 851-880.
    11. 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.
    12. Sturm, Jan-Egbert & Jacobs, Jan & Groote, Peter, 1995. "Productivity impacts of infrastructure investment in the Netherlands 1853-1913," Research Report 95D30, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    13. David H. Good & M. Ishaq Nadiri & Robin C. Sickles, 1996. "Index Number and Factor Demand Approaches to the Estimation of Productivity," NBER Working Papers 5790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Douglas R. Dalenberg & Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman, 1998. "Public Infrastructure: Pork or Jobs Creator?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 26(1), pages 24-52, January.
    15. Glomm, Gerhard & Ravikumar, B., 1997. "Productive government expenditures and long-run growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 183-204, January.
    16. Zolfaghari, Mehdi & Kabiri, Mahbobe & Saadatmanesh, Hamideh, 2020. "Impact of socio-economic infrastructure investments on income inequality in Iran," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1146-1168.
    17. William F. Fox & Sanela Porca, 2001. "Investing in Rural Infrastructure," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 24(1), pages 103-133, January.
    18. Pellervo Hamalainen, 2009. "Review of literature on the productivity of public capital," Discussion Papers 55, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    19. Everaert, Gerdie & Heylen, Freddy, 2001. "Public capital and productivity growth: evidence for Belgium, 1953-1996," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 97-116, January.
    20. Federici, Andrea, 2018. "Il rapporto tra capitale pubblico e altre variabili macroeconomiche: analisi della letteratura [The relationship between public capital and other macroeconomic variable: a literature review]," MPRA Paper 88515, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:wop:ccsowp:0020. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sorugnl.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.