Technological change and the decline of public investment

Abstract

Over the past 40 years public investment has declined in most developed countries. This paper argues that such pattern can be the consequence of investment-specific technological progress. Public investment, mostly on infrastructures, experienced a slower rate of innovation than private investment, composed primarily by equipment and software. Within a simple neoclassical growth model with a public sector, we show that such type of technological progress reduces the incentives to invest in public capital, and accounts for 80 percent of the observed decline. The implied co-movements of other fiscal instruments are also consistent with observed trends.