This paper describes the results of an impact evaluation of the National Solidarity Programme, a community-driven development programme in Afghanistan that created democratic village councils and funded small-scale development projects. Using a randomized controlled trial across 500 villages, we...

Decentralizing the allocation of public goods by giving funds directly to communities takes advantage of local information concerning needs, but decreases the accountability over how funds are used; leaving funds open to misuse or capture by local elites. In Indonesia, the World Bank attempts to...

We present a legislative bargaining model of the provision of a durable public good over an infinite horizion. In each period, there is a societal endowment which can either be invested in the public good or consumed. We characterize the optimal public policy, defined by the time path of...

We provide a comprehensive survey of the recent literature on the link between productive government expenditure and economic growth. Starting with the seminal paper of Robert Barro (1990) we show that an understanding of the core results of the ensuing contributions can be gained from the study...

The role of fiscal policy is examined when public goods provide both productive and utility services. In the presence of congestion, the consumption tax is shown to be distortionary. Optimal fiscal policy involves using consumption-based instruments in conjunction with the income tax. An income...

We provide a comprehensive survey of the recent literature on the link between productive government expenditure and economic growth. Starting with the seminal paper of Robert Barro (1990) we show that an understanding of the core results of the ensuing contributions can be gained from the study...

This paper estimates the impact of public good spending on voting behavior in the United States, using a quasi-experimental design and the distribution of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) road improvement projects across the state of New Jersey. I find an approximate 1.7 percentage...

This study re-examines McMillan’s analysis (1978) of a dynamic small open economy with a public intermediate good. On the trade patterns of the open economy, we find results that were overlooked in McMillan’s analysis. Among others, if labor endowment is of intermediate size, there are...

Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) has been incredibly influential generally and within economics, and it remains important despite some historical and conceptual flaws. Hardin focused on the stress population growth inevitably placed on environmental resources....

En este trabajo se analiza la contribución de las políticas públicas de inversión en capital público y humano al crecimiento de la productividad total de los factores en la UE-15 durante el periodo 1980- 2001. Esta contribución se estima a través de la elaboración de índices de...