This paper reviews empirical evidence for the United States on the impact of the public capital stock on productivity. On econometric grounds it is argued that most previous research is flawed. If the well-known model of Aschauer is estimated in first differences - which is necessary as the...

This paper reviews empirical research on the impact of government capital spending on economic growth. The pros and cons of five different ways to model the relationship between public investment and economic growth are reviewed, while some estimation results are presented for illustrative...