Public investment: another (different) look
Using a structural Vector Autoregression approach, this paper compares the macroeconomic effects of the three main government spending tools: government investment, consumption, and transfers to households, both in terms of the size and the speed of their effects on GDP and its components. Contrary to a common opinion, there is no evidence that government investment shocks are more effective than government consumption shocks in boosting GDP: this is true both in the short and, perhaps more surprisingly, in the long run. In fact, government investment appears to crowd out private investment, especially in dwelling and in machinery and equipment. There is no evidence that government investment “pays for itself” in the long run, as proponents of the “Golden Rule” implicitly or explicitly argue. The positive effects of government consumption itself are rather limited, and defense purchases have even smaller (or negative) effects on GDP and private investment. There is also no evidence that government transfers are more effective than government consumption in stimulating demand.
|Date of creation:||2004|
|Date of revision:|
|Contact details of provider:|| Postal: via Rontgen, 1 - 20136 Milano (Italy)|
Web page: http://www.igier.unibocconi.it/
|Order Information:|| Web: http://www.igier.unibocconi.it/en/papers/index.htm Email: |
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:277. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.