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Public Investment (public + investment)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	57%
Humanities and Social Sciences	31%
4 Other Domains	12%

Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

Agricultural Economics & Resource Management	35%
General & Introductory Economics	24%

Selected Abstracts

INCOME DISTRIBUTION, SOVEREIGN DEBT, AND PUBLIC INVESTMENT

ECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 3 2005
Cem Karayalçin
We develop a political economy model of sovereign debt that shows that income inequality leads to popular pressures on the government to use foreign debt to finance a redistribution of income at the expense of productive public investment. Recognizing this fact, international lenders impose credit ceilings with the consequence that developing country borrowers invest less and grow slower. [source]

Trade Liberalization and the Fiscal Squeeze: Implications for Public Investment

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2003
Barsha Khattry
This article examines the impact of trade liberalization on the level and structure of government expenditures across countries, with particular emphasis on low income countries. It develops the argument that the policies employed during trade liberalization have resulted in a fiscal squeeze as a result of declining tax revenues and rising interest expenditures. To surmount this fiscal hurdle, expenditures on physical capital, which have negligible political ramifications, have been reduced. Other more politically sensitive expenditures, such as spending on social capital, have been financed by incurring additional debt. However, additional debt has exerted upward pressure on interest payments, further exacerbating the fiscal situation. The statistical analysis carried out to examine the evidence uses panel data for eighty developing and industrialized countries over the period 1970,98 and employs a fixed,effects regression framework to account for country,specific characteristics. The results indicate that trade liberalization has indeed resulted in declining revenues and higher interest expenditures and that these factors have contributed to the observed decline in infrastructure spending. [source]

Public Investment in Europe: Evolution and Determinants in perspective,

FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2006
Aaron Mehrotra
Abstract We describe the evolution of public investment and public capital stocks in Europe over the past three decades. Against this background, we analyse the macroeconomic determinants of public investment, with a special focus on its long-term trend. We find that public investment has been determined by national income, the stance of budgetary policies and fiscal sustainability considerations. Neither the cost of financing nor the fiscal rules embodied in EMU have had a systemic impact on public investment. The significant downtrend that characterises the evolution of public investment in non-cohesion countries is chiefly determined by drawn-out episodes of fiscal consolidation, unrelated to EMU. [source]

Public Investment, the Stability Pact and the ,Golden Rule'

FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2000
Fabrizio Balassone
Abstract The fiscal rules set in the Treaty of Maastricht and in the Stability and Growth Pact have sometimes been criticised as an excessively binding constraint for appropriate counter-cyclical action. The risk that the rules may permanently reduce the public sector's contribution to capital accumulation has also been pointed out. In this framework, the adoption of a ,golden rule' has been suggested. Starting from the recent debate, this paper tackles two questions: (a) the implications of the Pact for public investment and (b) the pros and cons of introducing a golden rule in EMU's fiscal framework, given the objectives of low public debts and adequate margins for a stabilising budgetary policy. The analysis suggests that the rules set in the Treaty and in the Pact may negatively influence public investment spending. However, the golden rule, although intuitively appealing, does not seem to be an appropriate solution to the problem. [source]

The Regional Allocation of Public Investment: Efficiency or Equity?

JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2000
Norihiko Yamano
In this paper we examine the effect of public investment on the regional economies of Japan. The efficient policy for regional allocation of public capital is to invest in highly productive regions, whereas the actual policy pursues equity goals by allocating more public investment to depressed regions. We determine the effects of this equity- oriented allocation by estimating the aggregate regional production function and calculating the productivity of public capital stock for each region, using a cross-sectional time-series data set. Our results show that the marginal productivity of public capital has recently declined in most depressed regions, whereas the productivity in developed regions (e.g., Tokyo, Osaka) has increased slightly. We compare alternative policies of allocating public investment and their effects on the regional and national economies using numerical simulations. We then quantitatively describe the trade-off between the efficient and the equitable allocation of public investment. [source]

On Public Investment, the Real Exchange Rate and Growth: Some Empirical Evidence from the UK and the USA

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 3 2003
Sugata Ghosh
This study is based on a two-country endogenous growth model with optimizing agents, where public investment affects the real exchange rate and the long-run growth rate, and does so in a non-linear fashion. Non-parametric regression analysis of quarterly data from the UK and the USA suggests that there is a significant non-linear relationship between public investment and the real exchange rate, and also between public investment and the growth rate. This is also supported by our parametric generalized method of moments model that jointly determines the real exchange rate, growth rate and net foreign assets in terms of public investment. [source]

Private-sector investment in R&D: a review of policy options to promote its growth in developing-country agriculture

AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2010
Anwar Naseem
Technological innovation is vital to enhancing agricultural productivity and reducing poverty in many developing countries. Public investment in research and development has historically driven technological change in agriculture; however, recent trends suggest that the private sector may play a larger role in the future. Although there is optimism about the private sector's ability to generate new technologies relevant to developing-country agriculture, current levels of private investment remain low. The authors examine the determinants of private R&D investment in developing-country agriculture, the market, and institutional constraints that limit the growth of investment, and incentives that can promote more rapid investment growth. [EconLit classification: O300, Q160]. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Public investment and regional inequality in rural China

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2004
Xiaobo Zhang
Public investment; Regional inequality; Growth; Chinese economy Abstract This paper develops a method for decomposing the contributions of various types of public investment to regional inequality and applies the method to rural China. Public investments are found to have contributed to production growth in both the agricultural and rural non-agricultural sectors, but their contributions to regional inequality have differed by type of investment and the region in which they are made. All types of investment in the least-developed western region reduce regional inequality, whereas additional investments in the coastal and central regions worsen regional inequality. Investments in rural education and agricultural R&D in the western region have the largest and most favorable impacts on reducing regional inequality. [source]

Employment Effectiveness of China's Economic Stimulus Package

CHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 1 2010
Fang Cai
E24; E27; J21 Abstract Using an input-output method, this paper simulates the impacts of the global financial crisis and the decline of exports on China's economy and employment. With shrinking external demand, boosting domestic demand becomes crucial for maintaining economic growth and promoting employment. Our simulated results indicate that an investment scenario with employment as a priority can achieve the objective of employment maximization without significantly reducing growth. Public investment should focus on employment, education, health, housing and social security to rebalance China's economy so that it can realize sustained and stable economic growth. [source]

Public investment and regional inequality in rural China

Distributional Effects of FDI: How the Interaction of FDI and Economic Policy Affects Poor Households in Bolivia

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2007
Peter Nunnenkamp
This article provides a CGE analysis of the medium to long-run impact of FDI inflows on poverty and income distribution in Bolivia. The simulation results suggest that FDI inflows enhance economic growth and reduce poverty. However, the income distribution typically becomes more unequal. In particular, FDI widens disparities between urban and rural areas. The Bolivian government may promote the growth-enhancing and poverty-alleviating effects by overcoming labour-market segmentation and providing complementary public investment in infrastructure. But simulated policy reforms or alternative productivity scenarios are hardly effective in reducing the economic divide. [source]

Is the Impact of Public Investment Neutral Across the Regional Income Distribution?

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2005
Evidence from Mexico
Abstract: This article investigates the contribution of public investment to the reduction of regional inequalities, with a specific application to Mexico. We examine the impact of public investment according to the position of each region in the conditional distribution of regional income by using quantile regression as an empirical technique. The results confirm the hypothesis that regional inequalities can indeed be attributed to the regional distribution of public investment; the observed pattern shows that public investment mainly helped to reduce regional inequalities among the richest regions. [source]

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ON THE INDIGENOUS ESTATE: A PROFIT-RELATED INVESTMENT PROPOSAL

ECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 3 2005
Jon Altman
This article assesses the state of commercial development and resource management on Indigenous land in remote Australia. Indigenous landowners control significant assets,over one million square kilometres of land,often with substantial resource rights and income earning potential. The inactivity and missed opportunities on the Indigenous estate are of such magnitude as to represent a major risk both for Indigenous landowning communities, in terms of their future economic and social well-being, and for national and international interests in terms of ecological vulnerability. The article explores the role of government as risk manager in such circumstances and outlines the principles that might underpin any intervention program targeted to the commercial development of Indigenous land. Using the analytical framework for profit-related loans and elements of an existing venture capital support programme, the Innovation Investment Fund Program, we outline the hypothetical skeleton of a new investment scheme to assist development and natural resource management on the Indigenous estate. Our proposal can be conceptualised as a profit-related loan scheme or as a form of capped public investment. It seeks to address key elements of the market failure that exists in relation to financing development on remote Indigenous land, provides incentives for greater private sector investment, and ensures that commercial and social risks are shared equitably between government, private sector investors and Indigenous-owned corporations to avoid problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. [source]

INCOME DISTRIBUTION, SOVEREIGN DEBT, AND PUBLIC INVESTMENT

Public Investment in Europe: Evolution and Determinants in perspective,

Public Investment, the Stability Pact and the ,Golden Rule'

The nurse,family partnership: An evidence-based preventive intervention

INFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Issue 1 2006
David L. Olds
Pregnancy and the early years of the child's life offer an opportune time to prevent a host of adverse maternal, child, and family outcomes that are important in their own right, but that also reflect biological, behavioral, and social substrates in the child and family that affect family formation and future life trajectories. This article summarizes a 27-year program of research that has attempted to improve early maternal and child health and future life options with prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses. The program is designed for low-income mothers who have had no previous live births. The home-visiting nurses have three major goals: to improve the outcomes of pregnancy by helping women improve their prenatal health, to improve the child's health and development by helping parents provide more sensitive and competent care of the child, and to improve parental life course by helping parents plan future pregnancies, complete their education, and find work. The program has been tested in three separate large-scale, randomized controlled trials with different populations living in different contexts. Results from these trials indicate that the program has been successful in achieving two of its most important goals: (a) the improvement of parental care of the child as reflected in fewer injuries and ingestions that may be associated with child abuse and neglect and better infant emotional and language development; and (b) the improvement of maternal life course, reflected in fewer subsequent pregnancies, greater work-force participation, and reduced dependence on public assistance and food stamps. The impact on pregnancy outcomes is equivocal. In the first trial, the program also produced long-term effects on the number of arrests, convictions, emergent substance use, and promiscuous sexual activity of 15-year-old children whose nurse-visited mothers were low-income and unmarried when they registered in the study during pregnancy. In general, the impact of the program was greater on those segments of the population at greater risk for the particular outcome domain under examination. Since 1996, the program has been offered for public investment outside of research contexts. Careful attention has been given to ensuring that organizational and community contexts are favorable for development of the program, to providing excellent training and guidance to the nurses in their use of the program's visit-by-visit guidelines, to monitoring the functioning of the program with a comprehensive clinical information system, and to improving the performance of the programs over time with continuous improvement strategies. [source]

The ecological research needs of business

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
Paul R. Armsworth
Summary 1.,Businesses have an unrivalled ability to mobilize human, physical and financial capital, often manage large land holdings, and draw on resources and supply products that impact a wide array of ecosystems. Businesses therefore have the potential to make a substantial contribution to arresting declines in biodiversity and ecosystem services. To realize this potential, businesses require support from researchers in applied ecology to inform how they measure and manage their impacts on, and opportunities presented to them by, biodiversity and ecosystem services. 2.,We reviewed papers in leading applied ecology journals to assess the research contribution from existing collaborations involving businesses. We reviewed applications to, and grants funded by, the UK's Natural Environment Research Council for evidence of public investment in such collaborations. To scope opportunities for expanding collaborations with businesses, we conducted workshops with three sectors (mining and quarrying, insurance and manufacturing) in which participants identified exemplar ecological research questions of interest to their sector. 3.,Ten to fifteen per cent of primary research papers in Journal of Applied Ecology and Ecological Applications evidenced business involvement, mostly focusing on traditional rural industries (farming, fisheries and forestry). The review of UK research council funding found that 35% of applications mentioned business engagement, while only 1% of awarded grants met stricter criteria of direct business involvement. 4.,Some questions identified in the workshops aim to reduce costs from businesses' impacts on the environment and others to allow businesses to exploit new opportunities. Some questions are designed to inform long-term planning undertaken by businesses, but others would have more immediate commercial applications. Finally, some research questions are designed to streamline and make more effective those environmental policies that affect businesses. 5.,Business participants were forward-looking regarding ecological questions and research. For example, representatives from mining and quarrying companies emphasized the need to move beyond biodiversity to consider how ecosystems function, while those from the insurance sector stressed the importance of ecology researchers entering into new types of interdisciplinary collaboration. 6.,Synthesis and applications. Businesses from a variety of sectors demonstrated a clear interest in managing their impacts on, and exploiting opportunities created by, ecosystem services and biodiversity. To achieve this, businesses are asking diverse ecological research questions, but publications in leading applied ecology journals and research council funding reveal limited evidence of direct engagement with businesses. This represents a missed opportunity for ecological research findings to see more widespread application. [source]

Public investment and regional inequality in rural China

Aid, debt and fiscal policies in Senegal

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 8 2006
Bazoumana Ouattara
Abstract This paper uses the fiscal response framework to study the effects of aid flows on key fiscal aggregates in Senegal, over the period of 1970,2000. Attention is given to the interplay between aid and debt. The paper contributes to the empirics of fiscal response modelling by deriving the standard errors and p values associated with the different mechanisms of the structural and reduced form equations. The main findings in this paper are: (i) relatively large shares of government resources are used to finance debt servicing; (ii) the impact of aid flows on domestic expenditure is statistically insignificant and (iii) debt servicing has a significant negative effect on domestic expenditure. The main policy implication of this study is that debt reduction could be a more effective policy tool than additional aid (loans) in financing pro-poverty expenditure as well as public investment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Aid heterogeneity: looking at aid effectiveness from a different angle

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 8 2005
George Mavrotas
The paper uses an aid disaggregation approach to examine the impact of different aid modalities on the fiscal sector of the aid-recipient country. It uses time-series data on different types of development aid (project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid) for Uganda, an important aid recipient in recent years, to estimate a model of fiscal response in the presence of aid which combines aid heterogeneity and endogenous aid. The empirical findings clearly suggest the importance of the above approach for delving deeper into aid effectiveness issues since different aid categories have different effects on key fiscal variables,an impact that could not be revealed if a single figure for aid were employed. Project and food aids appear to cause a reduction in public investment whereas programme aid and technical assistance are positively related to public investment. The same applies for government consumption. A negligible impact on government tax and non-tax revenues, and a strong displacement of government borrowing are also found. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

The Regional Allocation of Public Investment: Efficiency or Equity?

BEYOND THE ECONOMIC CATALYST DEBATE: CAN PUBLIC CONSUMPTION BENEFITS JUSTIFY A MUNICIPAL STADIUM INVESTMENT?

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 5 2007
CHARLES A. SANTO
ABSTRACT:,A host of empirical studies have indicated that stadiums and arenas have no significant impact on metropolitan area income or employment. In light of this evidence, the continued proliferation of public investment in sports facilities begs the question: Is there some other justification for this spending, or are policymakers simply acting against the public interest (either irrationally, or in response to political-economic influences)? A possibility that has not been fully explored is the notion that stadiums and teams generate tangible and intangible consumption benefits that could support some level of public investment. This research builds on a small foundation of literature that is moving discussion beyond the economic catalyst debate by providing an empirical measure of the consumption benefits that accrue to a region as the result of hosting a major league sports team. A contingent valuation survey is used to quantify the consumption benefits that would be associated with the relocation of a major league baseball team to Portland, Oregon. An empirical measure of the region's aggregate willingness to pay for the benefits associated with hosting a team is disaggregated into option and existence values, which can then be compared to any proposed level of public contribution to a new stadium. The findings indicate that consumption benefits would only support a capital investment of approximately $74 million; a figure far smaller than the typical stadium subsidy. The majority of projected benefits are associated with expected public goods and externalities, rather than anticipated attendance, indicating that an equitable financing plan should employ nonuser revenue sources. The level of projected benefits does not vary by locality within the metropolitan area, which argues for a regional cost-sharing approach. The willingness of residents to pay for stadium construction is tempered by a concern about other pressing social needs in the Portland area and a reaction to the current tax climate. [source]

Is R&D investment in lagging areas of Europe worthwhile?

PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2001
Theory, empirical evidence
R&D, technology; spillovers; economic growth; regions; Western Europe Abstract. Is R&D investment in lagging areas worthwhile? There is no simple answer, nor is there universal theoretical agreement on the question. The Schumpeterian strand of the endogenous growth approach highlights the advantages of spatially concentrating the research and development (R&D) effort in a few areas, in order to maximise external economies and technological spillovers. Innovation is then expected to spill over from these technologically advanced areas into neighbouring regions. The neoclassical view, in contrast, considers that decreasing returns render investment in core areas increasingly less efficient, and makes investment in peripheries more effective. The regional policy view holds that public investment in R&D in lagging regions triggers economic convergence, because it limits congestion in the centre, helps to keep talent, and generates spin-offs in lagging areas. This article surveys these strands and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of investing in R&D in lagging regions. I then turn to the evolution of R&D investment across regions in Western Europe. [source]

Why Current Breast Pathology Practices Must Be Evaluated.

THE BREAST JOURNAL, Issue 5 2007
A Susan G. Komen for the Cure White Paper: June 200
To this end, the organization has a strong interest and proven track record in ensuring public investment in quality breast health and breast cancer care. Recently, Susan G. Komen for the Cure identified major issues in the practice of pathology that have a negative impact on the lives of thousands of breast cancer patients in the United States. These issues were identified through a comprehensive literature review and interviews conducted in 2005,2006 with experts in oncology, breast pathology, surgery, and radiology. The interviewees practiced in community, academic, and cooperative group settings. Komen for the Cure has identified four areas that have a direct impact on the quality of care breast cancer patients receive in the United States, the accuracy of breast pathology diagnostics, the effects of current health insurance, and reimbursement policies on patients who are evaluated for a possible breast cancer diagnosis, the substantial decrease in tissue banking participation, particularly during a time of rapid advances in biologically correlated clinical science and the role for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, pathology professional societies and the Federal government in ensuring that breast pathology practices meet the highest possible standards in the United States Concerns surrounding the quality and practice of breast pathology are not limited to diagnostic accuracy. Other considerations include, training and proficiency of pathologists who are evaluating breast specimens, the lack of integration of pathologists in the clinical care team, inadequate compensation for the amount of work required to thoroughly analyze specimens, potential loss in translational research as a result of medical privacy regulations, and the lack of mandatory uniform pathology practice standards without any way to measure the degree of variation or to remedy it. [source]

AN ENDOGENOUS GROWTH MODEL WITH PUBLIC CAPITAL AND SUSTAINABLE GOVERNMENT DEBT,

THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2007
ALFRED GREINER
This paper presents and analyses an endogenous growth model with public capital and public debt. It is assumed that the ratio of the primary surplus to gross domestic income is a positive linear function of the debt income ratio which assures that public debt is sustainable. The paper then derives necessary conditions for the existence of a sustainable balanced growth path for the analytical model. Further, simulations are undertaken in order to gain insight into stability properties of the model and in order to analyse growth effects of deficit financed increases in public investment. The latter is done for the model on the sustainable balanced growth path as well as for the model along the transition path. [source]

Using Trading Zones and Life Cycle Analysis to Understand Nanotechnology Regulation

THE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 4 2006
Ahson Wardak
This article reviews the public health and environmental regulations applicable to nanotechnology using a life cycle model from basic research through end-of-life for products. Given nanotechnology's immense promise and public investment, regulations are important, balancing risk with the public good. Trading zones and earth systems engineering management assist in explaining potential solutions to gaps in an otherwise complex, overlapping regulatory system. [source]

On Public Investment, the Real Exchange Rate and Growth: Some Empirical Evidence from the UK and the USA

Productivity growth and the returns from public investment in R&D in Australian broadacre agriculture

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2007
John Mullen
Investment in R&D has long been regarded as an important source of productivity growth in Australian agriculture. Perhaps because research lags are long, current investment in R&D is monitored closely. Investment in R&D has been flat while productivity growth has remained strong, relative both to other sectors of the Australian economy and to the agricultural sectors of other countries. Such productivity growth, at a time when the decline in terms of trade facing Australian farmers has slowed, may have enhanced the competitiveness of Australian agriculture. The econometric results presented here suggest no evidence of a decline in the returns from research from the 15 to 40 per cent per annum range estimated by Mullen and Cox. In fact the marginal impact of research increases with research over the range of investment levels experienced from 1953 to 2000, a finding which lends support to the view that there is underinvestment in agricultural research. These results were obtained from econometric models which maintain strong assumptions about how investments in research and extension translate into changes in TFP. Hence some caution in interpreting the results is warranted. [source]

Village Elections, Accountability and Income Distribution in Rural China

CHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 6 2006
Yang Yao
D63; D72; H41 Abstract China has experimented with village elections for nearly 20 years. Using village and household survey data collected from 48 villages of 8 Chinese provinces for the period 1986,2002, this paper studies how the introduction of elections affects village governance and income distribution in Chinese villages. The econometric analysis finds the following outcomes. First, village elections have increased the share of public expenditure and reduced the share of administrative expenditure in the village budget, so the accountability of the elected village committee has been enhanced. Second, elections have not led to more income redistribution; instead, they have reduced the progressiveness of income redistribution. Third, elections have reduced income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient in villages. The reduction is equivalent to 5.7 percent of the sample average, or 32 percent of the growth of the Gini coefficient in the period of 1987-2002. Because village elections have not led to more income redistribution, this positive effect must have come from more public investment, which benefits the poor more than wealthier people. The general conclusion that we draw from our results is that, despite institutional constraints, village elections have improved village governance and the life of villagers. (Edited by Xinyu Fan) [source]