Public capital formation and labor productivity growth in Mexico

This paper addresses the important question whether public investment spending on economic infrastructure enhances economic growth and labor productivity in Mexico. Following the lead of the endogenous growth literature, it presents a modified production function which explicitly includes the positive or negative externality effects generated by additions to the public capital stock. Using cointegration analysis, the paper proceeds to estimate a dynamic labor productivity function for the 1955–94 period that incorporates the impact of the growth rate in the stocks of both private and public capital (as opposed to the flows) and the economically active population (EAP) (rather than the rate of population growth). The results suggest that (lagged) increases in public investment spending on economic infrastructure—as opposed to overall public investment spending—have a positive and highly significant effect on the rate of labor productivity growth. In addition, the estimates suggest that increases in government consumption expenditures may have a negative effect on the rate of labor productivity growth, thus suggesting that the composition of government spending may also play an important role in determining the rate of labor productivity growth. Finally, the findings call into question the politically expedient policy in many Latin American countries of disproportionately reducing public capital expenditures on economic and social infrastructure to meet targeted reductions in the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP.     

Dynamics between government spending and economic growth in China: an analysis of productivity growth

This study investigates the dynamics between government spending and economic growth in China through influencing the productivity growth of human capital byapplying Markov switching estimates for the annual time series data of China over the period 1952–2014. Firstly, we found that the Chinese economy exists in two states including state one with low growth and state two with high growth. Secondly, the consumption spending has significantly positive effect both states, while the military spending has only positive effect in state two. Interestingly, the growth effect level of consumption spending in state two is smaller than that in state one, implying a reducing effect of total factor productivity in state two. Thirdly, the combined effects of consumption spending and military spending with human capital are state dependent. This combined effect is reduced in both states, suggesting that government spending does not improve the productivity growth effect of human capital.     

The impact of public investment on private investment spending in Latin America: 1980–95

This paper investigates the theoretical and empirical links between key economic variables and private spending in Latin America during 1980 to 1995. The empirical findings of this paper directly address the complementarity hypothesis which suggests that increases in public investment spending raise the marginal productivity of private capital, thereby inducing higher rates of private investment spending. This paper also addresses the issue of whether changes in the real exchange rate (expenditure-switching policies) have a deflationary effect on the economics of Latin America. The findings in this paper make an important contribution to the ongoing debate about which policies need to be promoted to raise and sustain the rate of private capital formation in Latin America—the region's future source of employment and income creation.     

Optimal government investment and public debt in an economic growth model

This paper establishes a nonlinear theoretical model and uses panel smoothing transitional regression to study the optimal levels of government investment and public debt in a growth model using a panel dataset of 65 developed and developing economies over the period 1991–2014. The empirical results show that the effect of government investment on economic growth is decreasing as the level of expenditure rises. When the government investment/GDP ratio reaches a certain point (threshold), the effect of government investment could change from positive to negative. The effect of public debt on economic growth demonstrates a similar pattern. Our results suggest that there must exist an optimal level of government investment or public debt as far as economic growth is concerned, although the optimal level may vary in different economies. The government investment/GDP and public debt/GDP ratios of China were respectively 15.66% and 41.14% in 2014. These levels did not reach their respective thresholds and hence their effects on economic growth were still in the positive territory. Despite the expansion of government investment and public debt in China after the world financial crisis, their scales had not affected the country's economic growth during the data period.     

Chile: The Unbearable Burden of Inequality

Chile has been cited as a successful case of development. Relatively fast economic growth over almost two decades has been accompanied by a significant reduction in absolute poverty. However, persistent economic growth and a mostly pro-poor structure of public expenditures have not been sufficient to reduce inequality in one of the most unequal countries in the world. We show that the key factors explaining this persistent inequality have been a low level of fiscal expenditures caused by low tax revenues that have not permitted enough public investment in human capital and knowledge generation and diffusion.     

地方财政支出与经济增长关系的实证研究——以深圳市为例

本文着重分析了改革开放后深圳市政府财政支出与经济增长的关系,发现经济增长促进了政府财政支出规模的扩张。根据各项支出对经济增长的影响,本文划分了生产性支出和非生产性支出两大类别,并利用VAR模型和脉冲响应检验了生产性财政支出冲击与非生产性财政支出冲击对经济增长的影响。通过了解这种影响模式,将为判断2010年深圳市大运会后经济增长趋向提供一种思路。     

Does Allocation of Public Spending Matter in Poverty Reduction? Evidence from Thailand*

The present paper uses a panel dataset to estimate the marginal returns to different types of government expenditure on agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction in Thailand. The study finds that additional government spending on agricultural research provides the largest return in terms of agricultural productivity and has the second largest impact on rural poverty reduction. Increased investment in rural electrification has the largest poverty reduction impact, mainly through improved nonfarm employment. Rural education has the third largest impact on both productivity and poverty reduction. Irrigation has a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but regional variation is considerable. Government spending on rural roads has no significant impact on agricultural productivity and its poverty reduction impact ranks last among all investment alternatives considered. Additional investment in the Northeast Region has a greater impact on poverty reduction than in other regions.     

What Do OECD Countries Cut First When Faced with Fiscal Adjustments?

Following the present scale of fiscal imbalances in developed countries, significant fiscal consolidation will be inevitable in the coming years. Fiscal discipline will require cuts in government expenditure, leading to trade‐offs between different components of government expenditure. In this article, we explore the relationship between components of government expenditure and government size during the period 1970‐2007 for a sample of 25 developed countries to shed light on how fiscal discipline might influence public spending composition in the coming years. Using the Pooled Mean Group estimation we find that fiscal adjustments protect functions that have both a social and productive character, such as education and health spending. In addition, the most productive spending, that related to transport and communications, is also isolated from budgetary cuts. This result shows evidence of governments reacting to the voter's increasing realization that reducing productive expenditures harms long‐term economic growth by striking a balance between utility and economic‐growth‐enhancing expenditure.     

Public sector expenditures and financial crisis in Chile

Working with official government statistics, this paper shows that IMF stabilization guidelines which blame inflation and balance-of-payments disequilibrium on fiscal deficits are incorrect in the case of Chile. There government spending has for the most part been held in check during the military government. However, there are leading and lagging expenditure areas within the government. Military spending has steadily increased, while social expenditures have been cut. The latter point directly contradicts the official government position.     

Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth: Role of Tax Revenues and Infrastructures

To encourage economic growth in a developing economy, higher agricultural productivity has been believed to enhance the manufacturing sector's development, which provides the transition into industrialization. Although this positive linkage between agricultural productivity and economic growth has been judged to be incorrect, based upon the comparative advantage argument in a model of small-open economies by Matsuyama (1992), this article revisits the linkage by extending Matsuyama's model by introducing the revenue-generating effect, which is missing in his model. As agriculture is an important source of taxation in an early stage of economic development, higher agricultural productivity generates more tax revenues and facilitates spending on infrastructure. By introducing government taxation and infrastructure expenditure, we show that under proper conditions, higher agricultural productivity creates a positive growth effect via the revenue generation that dominates the negative growth effect through the comparative advantage. Moreover, introducing infrastructure expenditure may shift the manufacturing sector's original comparative disadvantage into comparative advantage, thereby enabling a trapped economy to take off and eventually industrialize. From the early stages of economic development in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, we can quantitatively assess an obvious net positive effect of agricultural productivity upon labor allocation and economic growth.     

Oil revenues for public investment in Africa: targeting urban or rural areas?

This paper investigates the effects of oil-financed public investment on economic growth and poverty reduction using a dynamic multi-sectoral general equilibrium model featuring inter-temporal productivity spillovers. The paper shows that the relationship between resource-rent flows and real exchange rates, output growth, and poverty is less straightforward than simple models of the “resource curse” suggest. Taking Ghana as a stylized agriculture-based economy with poverty most pronounced in a region with home based agricultural production, a policy mix of smoothing the real exchange rate shock and an allocation of infrastructure spending in rural areas seems to be the most promising public investment strategy to enhance growth and reduce poverty.     

政府补贴、研发投入与全要素生产率

政府补贴有助于企业实现特定的经济目标,对企业研发投入和全要素生产率具有重要影响。选取 2013-2020 年中国496 家制造业上市企业数据,探究政府补贴、研发投入和全要素生产率三者之间的作用机制。运用 ACF 法测算全要素生产率,重点分析融资约束的双重门槛作用以及股权集中度的调节作用。结论表明：以融资约束为门限变量,政府补贴对研发投入的影响效应在不同门限区间中呈现显著变化;企业研发投入对全要素生产率起到正向促进作用,股权集中度在研发投入与全要素生产率之间具有显著正向调节作用。实证分析不仅对政府补贴、研发投入和全要素生产率的深入研究具有重要理论价值,同时对政府运用财政补贴政策具有启示作用。     

公共教育投资与延长人口红利——基于人力资本动态投入产出模型和SAM的预测

本文利用SAM和动态投入产出模型预测了通过提高公共教育投资以延长人口红利的可行性。假定政府扩张教育投入至GDP4.5%,施行高中义务教育,虽然在短期内由于挤占经济建设投资,会导致经济增速下降,但其长期效应包括：使高中和研究生学历人力资源迅速扩张,显著提升现代制造、科教、服务业的生产率,为产业结构升级打下基础;居民和企业相对收入提高,有利于经济增长模式转变;GDP增长率将随着人力资本的积累而回升,增长在人口红利拐点后得以延续。     

Government Spending Efficiency on Economic Growth: Roles of Value-added Tax

This study examines the impact of government spending efficiency on the economic growth of 115 countries with value-added tax (VAT) system. We seek to examine the moderating role of the VAT system on the relationship between public spending efficiency and the economic growth. Using Generalized Method of Moments estimation based on two-step estimate, we found (1) government spending efficiency promotes economic growth, (2) the VAT system is found to enhance the effect of an efficient government spending on the economic growth and (3) the moderating role of the VAT system is further enhanced by quality of democracy and legislative strength of the government.     

广东省财政支出与经济增长关系的实证研究——基于1978～2007年时间序列数据的验证

政府财政支出与经济增长之间的关系如何,学术界目前还没有一致性的结论。本文通过对广东省1978～2007年的财政支出与GDP时间序列数据进行分析,认为广东省GDP和财政支出总量之间有着正向的关系,并且它们之间有着长期稳定的均衡关系,经济增长是财政支出增长的格兰杰原因,而不是相反。     

Government Spending Patterns and the Real Exchange Rate in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Do government spending patterns and composition influence the behaviour of the real exchange rate in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA)? First, we present a two‐sector small open economy model which proposes that government spending together with productivity differential leads to real exchange rate appreciation. Then, we take these propositions to SSA data and perform a coordinated empirical analysis. Interestingly, we find empirical support for the propositions in SSA. Finally, we disaggregate government spending into three components—consumption, investment and transfer payments—and check whether the composition of government spending provides any insight into the behaviour of the real exchange rate in SSA. Our results suggest that government composition does influence the real exchange rate in SSA. Specifically, we find that government consumption induces a real appreciation while government investment leads to a real depreciation. Although these findings yield appropriate magnitudes and signed directions, their effects are not always significant.     

财政支出、居民消费与经济波动——基于动态随机一般均衡模型(DSGE)的分析

在动态随机一般均衡(DSGE)模型中引入财政支出冲击和居民消费习惯,将财政支出分为生产性支出和消费性支出,分别纳入生产函数和总消费函数,通过DSGE模型模拟了财政支出对居民消费、产出、就业、投资等经济变量的动态影响。模拟结果显示财政支出增加对居民消费产生了挤出效应,而对产出、就业等经济变量产生挤入效应。考虑消费习惯后,经济变量对外生冲击的响应呈驼峰状,并且影响程度加大。因此,合理划分政府支出的类型并恰当评估居民的消费习惯对把握财政政策的操作力度甚为重要。     

Public Spending and the Paradox of Supermajority Rule

This article examines the paradox that a supermajority rule in a legislature promotes excessive government spending. We propose a simple conjecture: If rent‐seeking coalitions dominate legislative politics and if individual legislators' demands for rent‐seeking activities are price‐inelastic, a change of legislative rules from simple majority to a supermajority will lead to greater public spending, other things equal. Using data from U.S. state legislatures, 1970 to 2007, we find that the adoption of a supermajority rule has a robust, positive impact on various types of tax revenues and government expenditures.     

Public investment and food security: Evidence from the Hundred Billion Plan in China

This paper examines the causal effect of public investment on food output by exploiting a panel dataset covering a large central government program (Hundred Billion Plan) in China from 2007 to 2013. Based on an event study methodology, we find that public investment significantly increases food output by 4.34%. We find that the sources of the policy effect come mainly through improving productivity, which is driven by increases in fertilizer inputs by households and by the crowding in local government agricultural investments. Further, an ad-hoc benefit-cost analysis shows that the internal return rate (IRR) is 0.23% over a 20-year period. Our results are robust in terms of the assumption of parallel trends, the confounding effect from an alternative policy, the nonrandom selection issue of policy implementation, the inclusion of alternative sets of control variables, the treatment of outliers and the omitted variable biases.