We consider the effect of an increase in public investments on output in Europe against the background of a sharp drop of public investments in a number of EU countries during the crisis and subsequent policy discussions on the need to stimulate public investments. We start with a brief overview...

This paper re-examines the validity of using expected values to evaluate the social profitability of public investments under uncertainty. Departing from the usual assumption of an aggregate good, the setting is a small open economy that faces stochastic world prices for tradable goods and...

Consumers should pay directly for many services furnished by the public sector, particularly such congestible services as roads or water and sewerage provided to easily identifiable users. However, these goods are often funded or partly subsidized through general taxes. Politicians seldom opt...