The Macroeconomic (and Distributional) Effects of Public Investment in Developing Economies

Download or read book The Macroeconomic (and Distributional) Effects of Public Investment in Developing Economies written by Davide Furceri and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-10-20 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.