The economic evaluation of major infrastructure projects notes on HSR projects

Abstract

In a second wave of econometric research, the estimations were much less optimistic (Evans and Karras, 1994; Holtz-Eakin, 1994; Holtz-Eakin and Schwartz, 1995; Holtz-Eakin and Lovely, 1996). Beyond the discussion on the value of the elasticities, the research on the economic impact of public infrastructure investment has shown that the estimated elasticities of productivity with respect to the stock of public capital are very sensitive to the present level of this stock. Aschauer’s high elasticities correspond to a period of low growth in the net stock of public capital. For example, in the case of Spain, de la Fuente and Vives (1995), Goerlich and Mas (2001) and Mas et al. (1996), among others, obtained higher elasticities in the 1970s than in the 1990s when the core infrastructure network was already built (from 0.14 to 0.02).