Is public expenditure productive-英文文献.pdf

Journal of Monetary Economics 23 (1989) 177-200. North-Holland IS PUBLIC E X P E N D I T U R E P R O D U C T I V E ? * David Alan A S C H A U E R Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago,IL 60690, USA Received March 1988,finalversion received September 1988 This paper considers the relationship between aggregate productivity and stock and flow govern- ment-spending variables. The empirical results indicate that (i) the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending, (ii) military capital bears little relation to productivity, and (iii) a core infrastructure of streets, highways, airports, mass transit, sewers, water systems, etc. has most explanatory power for productivity. The paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the productivity slowdown of the last fifteen years. 1. Introduction This paper considers the recent behavior of productivity in the private U n i t e d States economy and the extent to which its movements can be explained by public-sector capital accumulation as well as by the flow of government expenditures on goods and services. Much of the traditional discussion of fiscal policy centers on the public-sector deficit and the impor- tance of the decision of the fiscal authorities to issue debt rather than utilize contemporaneous taxes to cover a particular spending level. Government deficits are thought to have a variety of effects on the private economy, ranging from forcing up real interest rates and crowding out pri