This paper provides new empirical evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in developing economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify unanticipated changes in public investment, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output in the short and medium term, with an average short-term fiscal multiplier of about 0.2. We find some evidence that the effects are larger: (i) during periods of slack; (ii) in economies operating with fixed exchange rate regimes; (iii) in more closed economies; (iv) in countries with lower public debt; and (v) in countries with higher investment efficiency. Finally, we show that increases in public investment tend to lower income inequality.

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in developing economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify unanticipated changes in public investment, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output in the short and medium term, with an average short-term fiscal multiplier of about 0.2. We find some evidence that the effects are larger: (i) during periods of slack; (ii) in economies operating with fixed exchange rate regimes; (iii) in more closed economies; (iv) in countries with lower public debt; and (v) in countries with higher investment efficiency. Finally, we show that increases in public investment tend to lower income inequality.

We construct unanticipated government spending shocks for 103 developing countries from 1990 to 2015 and study their effects on income distribution. We find that unanticipated fiscal consolidations lead to a long-lasting increase in income inequality, while fiscal expansions lower inequality. The results are robust to several measures of income distribution and size of the fiscal shocks, to an alternative identification strategy, across expansions and recessions and across country groups (low-income countries versus emerging markets). An additional contribution of the paper is the computation of the medium-term inequality multiplier. This is on average about 1 in our sample, meaning that a cumulative decrease in government spending of 1 percent of GDP over 5 years is associated with a cumulative increase in the Gini coefficient over the same period of about 1 percentage point. The multiplier is larger for total government expenditure than for public investment and consumption (with the former having larger effect), likely due to the redistributive role of transfers. Finally, we find that (unanticipated) fiscal consolidations lead to an increase in poverty.

We estimate the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. We examine contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to prospective economic conditions. Based on this narrative dataset, our estimates suggest that fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on GDP, consistent with a multiplier of 0.9. We find these effects to be close to those in OECD countries based on a similarly constructed dataset (Devries and others, 2011). We also find similar estimation results for the two groups of economies for the effect of fiscal consolidation on the external current account balance, providing support for the twin deficits hypothesis.

Over the last decade, empirical studies analyzing macroeconomic conditions that may affect the size of government spending multipliers have flourished. Yet, in spite of their obvious public policy importance, little is known about public investment multipliers. In particular, the clear theoretical implication that public investment multipliers should be higher (lower) the lower (higher) is the initial stock of public capital has not, to the best of our knowledge, been tested. This paper tackles this empirical challenge and finds robust evidence in favor of the above hypothesis: countries with a low initial stock of public capital (as a proportion of GDP) have significantly higher public investment multipliers than countries with a high initial stock of public capital. This key finding seems robust to the sample (European countries, U.S. states, and Argentine provinces) and to the identification method (Blanchard-Perotti, forecast errors, and instrumental variables). Our results thus suggest that public investment in developing countries would carry high returns.

Decarbonisation is the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions using low carbon power sources, lowering output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. This is essential to meet global temperature standards set by international climate agreements. To limit global warming to 1.5°C, hence avoiding the worst-case scenarios predicted by climate science, the world economy must rapidly reduce its emissions and reach climate neutrality within the next three decades. This will not be an easy journey. Shifting away from carbon-intensive production will require a historic transformation of the structure of our economies. Written by a team of academics linked to the European think tank Bruegel, The Macroeconomics of Decarbonisation provides a guide to the macroeconomic fundamentals of decarbonisation. It identifies the major economic transformations, both over the long- and short-run, and the roadblocks requiring policy intervention. It proposes a macroeconomic policy agenda for decarbonisation to achieve the climate goals of the international community.

Laying a solid foundation of economic facts and ideas, this book provides a comprehensive look at the critical role of public capital in development.

This book makes a unique contribution in advancing understanding of the fiscal condition and growth potential of the New Member States of the European Union. It provides new data, policy evaluation, and offers national and regional perspectives. The core research questions are the effect of public investment in the context of macroeconomic disequilibrium and how it is possible to finance capital accumulation in the present and future conditions of mounting public sector debt. The contributors reveal that there is now a convincing case for public investment as an essential driver of convergence and growth in Europe. However, a new international and inter-generational fiscal pact to frame a more optimistic view of the role of government is needed. This book explores how public investment matters for growth, how fiscal conditions may support investment, and the role EU regional policy can have in terms of structural change and investment needs. Public Investment, Growth and Fiscal Constraints provides new data analyses on the EU New Member States in Central and Eastern Europe making it an essential tool for academics, students and practitioners interested in public finance and European Economics. The structural and public finance issues in these former transition economies raised in this book will also strongly appeal to policymakers, officials and consultants. The book is based on an independent research project of the University of Milan, supported by the European Investment Bank.

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the impact of an unanticipated change in public debt on real GDP. Using public debt forecast errors, we identify exogenous changes in public debt to assess the impact of a change in the debt to GDP ratio on real GDP. By analyzing data on gross public debt for 178 countries over 1995-2020, we find that the impact of an unanticipated increase in public debt on the real GDP level is generally negative and varies depending on other fundamental characteristics. Specifically, an unanticipated increase in the public debt to GDP ratio hurts real GDP level for countries that have (i) a high initial debt level or (ii) a rising debt trajectory over the five preceding years. On the contrary, an unanticipated increase in public debt boosts real GDP for countries that have (iii) a low-income level or (iv) completed the HIPC debt relief initiative.

Mexico's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted unprecedentedly as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. While the primary sector has relatively been the most resilient, the agriculture sector lacks sufficiently strong productive dynamism and has high rates of informal work and low wages. Investing more in the sector's productive infrastructure would help accelerate economic recovery while improving people’s well-being. A public investment policy should be developed on the basis of evidence, such as that provided in this study. In 21 prospective scenarios that simulate the allocation of additional public investment in productive infrastructure across subsectors of agriculture, equivalent to 0.25 percent of GDP (around MXN 50 billion) between 2021 and 2023, there is an improvement in total and agrifood GDP, and in the well-being of the Mexican people, as measured by private consumption and rural poverty reduction. However, it is recommended that new investment be focused on certain subsectors and that it be financed through foreign borrowing. According to a ranking of subsectors that receive new investment, the sugar cane subsector ranks first in three of the four variables considered (private consumption, total GDP, agrifood GDP and rural poverty). Cereals, mainly maize, but also others (rice, sorghum, oats, barley and other cereals), and the more export-oriented crops, such as flowers and coffee, also appear at the top of the ranking.