Title: Technological change and the decline of public investment
Abstract: Over the past 40 years public investment has declined in most developed countries. This paper argues that such pattern can be the consequence of investment-specific technological progress. Public investment, mostly on infrastructures, experienced a slower rate of innovation than private investment, composed primarily by equipment and software. Within a simple neoclassical growth model with a public sector, we show that such type of technological progress reduces the incentives to invest in public capital, and accounts for 80 percent of the observed decline. The implied co-movements of other fiscal instruments are also consistent with observed trends.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: preprint
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