Acknowledged the importance of the Road transportation to Brazilian economy, especially when considering cargo transportation, Ipea has studied the main economical and institutional problems that involve Brazilian roads. Firstly, we present an overview of the road system from 1950's expansion to...

This work develops a framework able to guide investment in hospital capacities within the realm of a complex health system. The study is performed from the standpoint of the economic surplus of public hospitals. Although the paper is inspired by the Brazilian National Health System, it can be...

This article presents new monthly estimates of the gross fixed capital formation of the Brazilian general government for the 2002-2010 years. A significant research effort was made to carry out the estimations. First, the many differences between the concepts of public investment (as used in the...

The importance of private sector participation and public-private partnerships (PPPs) in promoting infrastructure development in the Asian region has been significant. Though there are several studies which have highlighted the role of PPPs in infrastructure in East and South East Asia, few...

A growing body of literature shows that child health has substantial long-term economic impacts. This study examines whether, and to what extent, increased access to health infrastructure leads to better child health status as measured by weight-for-age z-scores. To assess the causal...

We examine the evolution of public investment and public capital stocks in Europe during the past three decades. Against this background, we employ an array of econometric techniques to assess the macroeconomic determinants of public investment, with a special focus on its long-term trend. We...

This study addresses the macroeconomic effect of foreign aid on the factors of growth. Specifically, we examine the effects of foreign aid on capital investment (human capital, physical capital) in sub-Saharan Africa. Our methodological approach evaluates the effect of disaggregate aid (aid for...

The current financial and economic crisis has again raised fears in emerging market economies of capital flight or a sudden stop of capital inflows. Especially the latter is intensively discussed in South Africa. We try to evaluate the danger by focusing on the sustainability of current account...

In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital - productivity link by exploiting very recent developments in the panel time series literature that take into account cross sectional correlation in non-stationary panels. In particular we evaluate the productive effect of public capital...