This paper examines the link between fiscal rules and public investment both normatively and empirically. We first review the arguments for and against including public investment spending in a fiscal deficit rule. We then seek to assess the determinants of public investment, with a special...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of revenue decentralization on the provision of infrastructure at the sub-national level. We estimate the effects of revenue decentralization and earmarked grant financing on the level of sub-national infrastructure investment in 20 European...

With the advent of the digital revolution in the 1990s, productivity growth in the EU began to slip behind that in the US and other leading trading partners. This trend has undermined the comparative ability of European firms to compete and to provide rewarding jobs and a high standard of...

We set out to decompose government investment, seeking especially to estimate how much governments in Europe invest in infrastructure in general and transport infrastructure in particular. It is concluded that infrastructure accounts for about one-third of overall government investment in the EU...

Recognising and discussing the elusiveness of industrial policy as a distinct policy concept, this paper argues against what probably is the most extreme type of so-called "vertical" industrial policy, that is, support for national or European champions. It also critically reviews the rationale...