The Macroeconomic Impact of Infrastructures: A Literature Review and Empirical Analysis on the Case of Italy

This paper aims to analyze the macroeconomic impact of infrastructures through review of the literature, meta-analysis and empirical analysis of the Italian data. We report a general consensus over the positive effects of infrastructures, even though the results are affected by the estimation techniques adopted. The empirical exercise on the Italian data shows that public capital has effectively exerted positive long-run effects on growth, also fostering private investment. Nevertheless, the results should not be taken as a general prompt to increase investment, the effects depending mainly on the efficiency of the spending and production process.