Consumption rivalry generates variation in the choice sets individual decision-makers face. When such variation is not taken into account, biased estimates of demand result. Researchers however often lack exact information on temporal variation in product availability and necessarily limit...

We analyze the welfare multipliers of public spending (the consumption equivalent change in welfare for one dollar change in public spending) in a DSGE model. The welfare multipliers of public infrastructure investment are positive if infrastructure is sufficiently effective. When the...

This paper focuses on the trade-off faced by governments in deciding the allocation of public expenditures between productivity-enhancing public infrastructures and utility-enhancing public consumption. From the modeling point of view, the paper augments a standard New Open Economy...

How does a public electric utility company optimize its capital budget for grid reliability? We illustrate an economically optimal way to allocate funding these efforts using circuit-level data from Eversource Energy to quantify the benefits to tree trimming treatments over the period of...

It has become increasingly common to allocate highway franchises to the bidder that offers to charge the lowest toll. Often, building a highway increases the value of land held by a small group of developers, an effect that is more pronounced with lower tolls. We study the welfare implications...

This paper focuses on the trade-off faced by governments in deciding the allocation of public expenditures between productivity-enhancing public infrastructures and utility-enhancing public consumption in a two-country model. The results show that a permanent increase in the domestic stock of...

The U.S. economy is growing more slowly than it can and should be growing because it does not invest enough in infrastructure, science, and education. There is an important procedural obstacle to funding public investments — a process of scoring the economic effect of legislation. This process...

This paper traces the 11,000 year evolution of infrastructure systems during major periods of innovation, expansion and diffusion. Throughout history, the key role of the State is self-evident. Private sector involvement has waxed and waned over millennia, although at times it has been pivotal...

Leveraging a new measure of patent citation trees (Corredoira & Banerjee, 2015), we demonstrate that research funded by the federal government is likely to spark more active technological trajectories. Our findings tie government funding to the generation of breakthrough inventions. The...