EFFECT OF PUBLIC INVESTMENT ON THE REGIONAL ECONOMIES IN POSTWAR JAPAN

This paper examines the effect of public investment on the regional economies of postwar Japan. It evaluates the effects of efficiency-verses-equity-oriented allocation policies by estimating the aggregate regional production function and calculating the marginal productivity of public capital for each region, using panel data covering the 47 prefectures over the period from 1955 to 2000. The empirical results show that public capital investment has alternated between an allocation policy based on efficiency and one that is based on equity, and, in fact, such investment was used as a policy tool for adjusting income distribution and accelerating economic growth. Numerical simulations are used to analyze the trade-offs between economic efficiency and inter-prefectural equity. The results indicate that in the case of income-elastic labor mobility, an efficiency-oriented allocation policy leads to larger aggregate gross domestic product by promoting both growth and equity simultaneously.     

Long-run growth and welfare effects of public policies with distortionary taxation

In a one-sector growth model with infrastructure investment, we study the impact of fiscal policies on growth. The government collects taxes on labor income and profits. The government uses these revenues to purchase infrastructure investment, provide utility enhancing government services, and to provide transfer payments to the households. We show that the balanced growth rate is an increasing function of the percent of government revenues that goes to infrastructure. We find that the growth maximizing mix of taxes depends on the elasticity of substitution between inputs. In particular, with distortionary taxes, the growth maximizing tax rate on capital is higher the lower the elasticity of substitution between private physical capital and public capital. In addition, the growth maximizing size of the government is higher when the elasticity of substitution between public and private inputs is low. We also investigate welfare effects of other public expenditures as well. Depending on the elasticity of substitution in production, the welfare implications of different public policies can be substantial.     

The effects of public spending externalities

We conduct a positive analysis on the effects of ‘externalities’ produced by government spending. To this effect, we estimate, using U.S. data, an RBC model with two salient features. First, we allow government consumption to directly affect the marginal utility of consumption. Second, we allow public capital to shift the productivity of private factors. We provide an identification analysis that supports the strategy adopted for estimating the parameters governing these two channels. On one hand, private and government consumption are robustly estimated to be substitute goods. Because of substitutability, labor supply reacts little to a government consumption shock, so the estimated output multiplier is much lower than in models with separabilities. On the other hand, our results point towards public investment being ‘unproductive’.     

Public and Private Investment and The Growth Process in Developing Countries

This paper examines the relative contribution of public and private investment to per capita GDP growth in developing countries. It extends the basic neoclassical model of growth by separating investment into its public and private components, and estimates this model for a sample of 95 developing countries over the period 1970–90 using both cross-sectional and panel data. Using data on relative supplies of public and private capital stock, rates of return to public and private investment are also computed. The results suggest that once other determinants of growth, such as human capital formation, population growth, and technical progress, are taken into account, public and private investment have different effects on growth, and that these effects are characterized by marked regional and inter-temporal variations.     

Investment in Fixed Capital Stock: Testing for the Impact of Sectoral and Systemic Uncertainty*

This paper applies current theory recognizing the irreversibility of investment, in order to test for the impact of uncertainty on investment expenditure for a middle income country. The contribution of the paper is unique in two respects. First, it employs dynamic heterogeneous panel estimation techniques not previously applied to investment functions. Secondly, it explicitly tests for the impact of both sectoral and systemic uncertainty on investment expenditure. We find that both sectoral (as measured by output volatility) and systemic uncertainty (as measured by political instability) have a negative impact on investment rates in a middle income country context. Liquidity constraints and growth in total factor productivity are found to have no impact on investment, while trade liberalization has the impact predicted by Heckscher‐Ohlin trade theory. Finally, we find complementarity effects between physical capital and skilled human capital, suggesting that South African educational policies may have hampered investment in physical capital as well as the growth performance of the economy. Policy implications emphasize the importance of lowering uncertainty for investors, and the need for sound human capital investment.     

Optimal Growth with Public Capital and Public Services

We characterize optimal economic growth in an endogenous growth model in which production requires public capital (a stock) and public services (a flow) in addition to private capital and labor. We analyze the comparative static effects of changes in the fundamental technological and preference parameters of the model on the optimal values of several variables, such as the optimal rate of growth and the optimal allocation of resources among consumption, the provision of public services, and investment in public and private capital. We show that the general optimal path converges in finite time to the balanced growth optimal path. We relate our paper to important contributions to the existing literature by obtaining them as special cases of our model.     

Embodying Embodiment in a Structural,Macroeconomic Input-Output Model

In this paper, I develop a regression-based system of labour productivity equations that account for capital-embodied technological change and I incorporate this system into IDLIFT, a structural, macroeconomic input-output model of the US economy. Builders of regression-based forecasting models have long had difficulty finding labour productivity equations that exhibit the "Solowian' property that movements in investment should cause accompanying movements in labour productivity. The production theory developed by Solow and others dictates that this causation is driven by the effect of traditional capital deepening as well as technological change embodied in capital. Lack of measurement of the latter has hampered the ability of researchers to estimate properly the productivity-investment relationship. Recent research by Wilson (2001) has alleviated this difficulty by estimating industry-level embodied technological change. In this paper, I utilize those estimates to construct capital stocks adjusted for technological change and then use these adjusted stocks to estimate Solow-type labour productivity equations. It is shown that replacing IDLIFT's former productivity equations, based on changes in output and time trends, with the new equations, results in a convergence between the dynamic behaviour of the model and that predicted by traditional (Solowian) production theory.     

Aspects of growth in a system of cities

This paper explores and develops the modeling of growth in a system of cities in two alternative settings. First, we examine a large growing economy with a fully developed system of cities with perfectly malleable private and public capital. Local scale economies in production and diseconomies in consumption in equilibrium offset each other at the margin so that from a national point of view we have a constant returns to scale economy. We show that at the steady state the number of cities grows exponentially at the rate of growth of the population. We then examine the impact of technological change, considering a case where public capital is not perfectly malleable. In the second setting, we consider the problem of growth for a small economy and discuss problems associated with the transition to the steady state. We modify the previous model to describe a system of cities that is just starting to develop. Investment in public infrastructure capital is subject to sharp indivisibilities and as a result new cities are built at discrete points in time.     

Productivity and Growth in UK Industries: An Intangible Investment Approach*

This article calculates some facts for the ‘knowledge economy’. Using new data, first we document UK intangible investment and find that (i) this is greater than tangible investment by £37bn in 2008; (ii) R&D is 11% of total intangible investment, software 15%, and training and organizational capital 22% each; (iii) the most intangible‐intensive industries are manufacturing and financial services. Next, we measure the contribution of intangible capital to growth for 2000–08. We find that intangible capital accounts for 23% of labour productivity growth and treating intangibles as investment lowers total factor productivity growth in the 2000s by 24% (R&D lowers it by 3%).     

Geographic poverty traps? A micro model of consumption growth in rural China

How important are neighbourhood endowments of physical and human capital in explaining diverging fortunes over time for otherwise identical households in a developing rural economy? To answer this question we develop an estimable micro model of consumption growth allowing for constraints on factor mobility and externalities, whereby geographic capital can influence the productivity of a household's own capital. Our statistical test has considerable power in detecting geographic effects given that we control for latent heterogeneity in measured consumption growth rates at the micro level. We find robust evidence of geographic poverty traps in farm‐household panel data from post‐reform rural China. Our results strengthen the equity and efficiency case for public investment in lagging poor areas in this setting. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Symmetry between the Revenue and the Expenditure Side of the Government Budget in the Debate about the Potential Negative Effects of Tax Competition

The effects of capital tax competition are reconsidered in this paper incorporating the argument that the expenditure structure of public budget should reflect its revenue structure. The paper offers a small open economy model where capital and labour tax revenues are used exclusively on the provision of public inputs. It is shown that if the revenue side of the government budget exactly matches the expenditure side that is if industrial public goods are financed by both private production factors with the weights reflecting the contributions of public inputs to the private factor productivity then public inputs are provided optimally even in the presence of tax competition.     

财政购买性支出激励与经济持续增长——兼论确立服务型政府的合理性

本文建立了政府支出创新激励经济增长的理论模型,模型表明政府支出对经济增长的效应取决于预算、投资生产率和支出结构.借助VAR实证模型,中国的经验实证分析表明:公共花费是公共投资的基础,也是GDP增长的主要影响变量;公共投资不一定能促进GDP增长.为此,我们提出政策建议:必须转变政府职能,由投资型政府变为服务型政府,以促进经济持续增长.     

改革开放以来中国经济增长动力转换的时空特征

基于中国1978~2012年的省级面板数据,采用检验后的超越对数生产函数的随机前沿模型,利用两套资本存量核算方法,对中国经济增长动力的来源及其时空特征进行分析,并对2008年金融危机的4万亿元投资政策进行了效率评价。研究结果表明,中国属于典型的投资主导型经济,资本投入是中国经济增长持续稳定的最主要来源,TFP贡献率呈现逐年下降的趋势;中国经济增长动力由改革开放初期的资本、劳动力和TFP三驾马车平衡拉动,形成了现阶段的资本投入与TFP反向角力态势;区域经济差距主要源于资本投入与TFP双重差异,但TFP差异是最重要因素;4万亿元经济刺激政策下中国经济复苏属于典型的“投资主导型复苏”,是以牺牲中国生产率为代价的,TFP在2008年后呈现断崖式下降,平均拉低中国TFP达0.23~0.32个百分点。     

公共资本生产率的比较研究——基于长三角21城市公共资本边际生产率的实证分析

近10年来长三角的政府公共投资（分配）过多地流向了上海、苏州、杭州、南京等核心城市，使这些城市的人均公共资本拥有量大幅上升，从而引发了其边际生产率递减情况的发生。但它们的资本利用效率或技术创新水平没有明显提升（或下降），不足以抵消其资本边际生产率下降的趋势。对这些大城市的经济发展来说，公共投资对其经济增长的意义已经在数量上表现得不明显，但对正处于经济快速增长期且资本边际生产率呈递增态势的长三角外缘中小城市而言，公共投资却有着积极意义。     

The dynamic investment and exit decisions of venture capitals

This study develops a continuous time model to examine a complete two-stage decision process for venture capitals (VCs), including investment in the private market at Stage 1 and exit through IPO in the public market at Stage 2. Optimal timings, investment terms, and exit decisions are investigated using the real options game theory under two cases: the same required returns in the public and private markets and a higher required return in the private market than in the public market. Our results indicate that the same required returns in the public and private markets generate an optimal investment decision at Stage 1 without relation to the exit decision in Stage 2. However, when the required return in the private market is higher than that in the public market, the exit decision will influence the investment decision. The size of the initial capital, ownership structure, growth rate and risk of industry, required returns in public and private capital markets, extent of lock-up period price pressure, and transaction costs of financing are important factors influencing the equilibrium results.     

The productivity of transport infrastructure investment: A meta-analysis of empirical evidence

Investments in transport infrastructure have been widely used by decision makers to encourage economic growth, particularly during periods of economic downturn. There has been extensive research on the linkage between transport infrastructure and economic performance since the late 1980s, characterised by widely varying evidence. We conduct a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence on the output elasticity of transport infrastructure, based on a sample of 563 estimates obtained from 33 studies. Previous meta-analyses have focused on total public capital and hence cannot appropriately explain the wide variation in the productivity effect of transport infrastructure nor provide guidance to policymakers on the returns to investment in different types of transport infrastructure. Our results indicate that the existing estimates of the productivity effect of transport infrastructure can vary across main industry groups, tend to be higher for the US economy than for European countries, and are higher for roads compared to other modes of transport. The variation in the estimates of the output elasticity of transport is also explained by differences in the methods and data used in previous studies. Failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity and spurious associations tends to result in higher values, while failing to control for urbanisation and congestion levels leads to omitted variable bias. These findings can be used to inform future research on the choice of model specification and estimation and transport-related policy making.     

我国技术创新活动的集聚效应分析

本文使用超越对数生产函数—反要素需求函数分析框架,研究了集聚经济对于我国技术创新活动全要素生产率、单要素生产率、要素价格以及要素需求的影响。结果显示,无论是在全国层面还是在区域层面,集聚经济对于我国技术创新的全要素生产率均有显著的正向作用。同时,集聚经济对于技术创新活动劳动生产率以及资本生产率没有显著影响。在区域层面,集聚经济将降低科技劳动的边际成本,同时提高对于科技劳动的需求。     

Is technical change embodied in the capital stock or new investment?

The question of technical change and productivity growth is one of the fundamental empirical issues of our time. Surprisingly, Solow's original question of whether technical change is embodied in investment or the entire capital stock has been largely neglected. This paper seeks to bridge the early work of Solow and others on the extent of embodiment of technical change with the more modern approach to estimating the structure of production and technical change using multifactor cost functions. We also attempted to identify the source and structural nature of embodied technical change by decomposing it. Our theoretical model is applied to a pooled cross-section of six OECD countries for the 1965–1989 period. Our preferred model is one of full factor-augmenting embodied technical change because technical change augmenting the entire capital stock tends to overstate quality change in the aggregate capital stock more than that embodied in new investment. This model specification supports the view that technical change is embodied in the stock of capital structure and is embodied in new investment of capital equipment.     

Public capital formation and productivity growth: Some international evidence

This paper examines the proposition that public capital spending fosters productivity growth in the private sector using a pooled sample of seven OECD countries over the 1963–1988 period. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between public capital formation and the growth rate of labor productivity. This result is not sensitive to whether there is constant returns to scale to some or all inputs, whether the stochastic formulation of the pooled model is a fixed- or a random-effect specification, whether the model includes an energy variable, or whether the data are expressed in the log-differenced or logarithmic form.     

Knowledge Spillovers,ICT and Productivity Growth

This paper looks at the channels through which intangible assets affect productivity growth. The econometric analysis exploits a new data set on intangible investment (INTAN‐Invest) in conjunction with EUKLEMS productivity estimates for 10 EU member states from 1998 to 2007. We find that (a) the output elasticity of intangible capital depends upon ICT intensity, consistent with complementarities between ICT and intangible capital; (b) non‐R&D intangible capital has a higher estimated output elasticity than its factor share, as does (c) an index of labour composition. The last two findings are consistent with growth spillovers from investments in knowledge‐based/intangible capital and skills.