We use a simple endogenous growth model with productive public capital to investigate the degree to which observed fiscal policies in eight OECD countries can account for slowdowns in the growth rates of aggregate labor productivity since 1970. In model simulations, we find that none of the...

This paper: (1) shows that optimal transition dynamics in a simple endogenous growth model can account for much of the behavior of the stock of public capital in the U.S. economy over the last 70 or so years; (2) shows that the observed decline in the U.S. ratio of public to private capital...

This paper develops a quantitative theoretical model for the optimal provision of public capital. We show that the ratio of public to private capital in the U.S. economy since 1925 evolves in a manner that is broadly consistent with an optimal transition path derived from a simple growth model....