Public spending and private investment: evidence from Greece

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there is a link between disaggregated measures of government expenditures and private investment in Greece. A cointegration analysis of a multivariate system of equations is applied in order to empirically estimate the long run relationships between private investment and different measures of government expenditures. Subsequently IRF and VDC are estimated. Government investment is found to assert a positive effect on private investment, supporting in this way the capital accumulation process. On the other hand, government consumption appears to compete for the same resources with government investment, while it negatively affects private investment.