We examine the dynamic macroeconomic effects of public infrastructure investment both theoretically and empirically, using a novel data set we compiled on various highway spending measures. Relying on the institutional design of federal grant distributions among states, we construct a measure of...

We explore the relative ability of local economies to retain their long-run growth dynamics when faced by the destabilizing effects of major shocks. Taking annual wage series for nineteen U.K. towns over the historical period 1871–1906, we fit a spatial panel data model to 1871–1890 data and...

This paper investigates nonlinearity in parametric spatial process models that incorporate regime-switching by means of a smooth transition autoregressive process. We derive a Lagrange Multiplier (LM) test for nonlinearity as well as several joint LM tests for nonlinearity and the traditional...

Urbanisation in China has long been held back by various restrictions on land and internal migration but has taken off since the 1990s, as these impediments started to be gradually relaxed. People have moved in large numbers to richer cities, where productivity is higher and has increased...

Despite being one of the smallest countries in the OECD, Israel is marked by significant socio-economic disparities, which have a clear spatial dimension. Ethnic and religious groups with weak socio-economic outcomes are not benefitting from the thriving high-tech sector in the centre of the...

In generating fast economic growth, China is also generating growing concern about its environmental record. Using 2000-2009 data, we find that, while spending on environmental infrastructure has visible positive environmental impact, city spending is strongly tilted towards transportation...

Investments in transport infrastructure have been widely used by decision makers to encourage economic growth, particularly during periods of economic downturn. There has been extensive research on the linkage between transport infrastructure and economic performance since the late 1980s,...

Owing to slow growth and a relatively weak fiscal position, Portugal’s public debt had been rising for almost a decade when the global crisis struck, sharply increasing the deficit. The loss of confidence in Portuguese and other euro area sovereign bonds required international financial...

The challenge for fiscal policy in Slovakia is to achieve fiscal consolidation in a way which supports the fragile recovery and protects spending on areas which are important for re-embarking on a trajectory of high trend growth and underpinning a catch-up in living standards. While the recently...

Poland has significantly upgraded its infrastructure network over the past decade. However, bottlenecks still weigh on productivity growth and environmental and health outcomes. The EU 2014-20 programming period is an opportunity to improve the management of infrastructure investment. In the...