The impact of public investment on private investment in Mexican states

Abstract

The literature on economic growth has robustly demonstrated that gross fixed capital formation is a principal determinant of economic growth. What is more debatable, however, is the consensus regarding the interactions between public and private investment. The aim of this article is to contribute to this debate by focusing on the relationships between public and private investment in Mexico at the state level. In contrast to the conventional approaches which focus on investment “flows,” this article employs the variation in fixed capital stocks, adopting a panel econometric methodology. Findings indicate a positive relationship between both components -public and private- in terms of the variation of their stocks.