WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THREE DECADES OF RESEARCH ON THE PRODUCTIVITY OF PUBLIC CAPITAL?

The last three decades have witnessed a great deal of research effort devoted to measuring the private output elasticity of public capital. The wide range of available estimates have precluded any consensus so far, however. This paper reconciles the empirical findings of the literature by quantitati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic surveys 2014-12, Vol.28 (5), p.889-916
Main Authors: Bom, Pedro R.D., Ligthart, Jenny E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capital
Central government
Economic theory
Elasticity of substitution
Empirical research
Global economy
Infrastructure
International
Meta-analysis
Output
Productivity
Public capital
Public investment
Publication bias
Regression analysis
Studies
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Summary:The last three decades have witnessed a great deal of research effort devoted to measuring the private output elasticity of public capital. The wide range of available estimates have precluded any consensus so far, however. This paper reconciles the empirical findings of the literature by quantitatively analyzing a sample of 578 estimates collected from 68 studies for the 1983–2008 period. Using meta‐regression analysis, we show how study design characteristics and publication bias can explain a large fraction of the variation across estimates. We find a short‐run output elasticity of public capital supplied at the central government level of 0.083, which increases to 0.122 in the long run. If, in addition, only core infrastructure at a regional/local level of government is considered, these estimates are almost doubled. The average output elasticity of public capital amounts to 0.106. Our results suggest that public capital is undersupplied in OECD economies.
ISSN:0950-0804
1467-6419
DOI:10.1111/joes.12037