Is there a lack of public capital in the European Union?

This paper investigates whether there is a lack of public capital in European Union countries. The analysis builds on a new database providing internationally comparable capital stock estimates for 22 OECD countries, among these 14 EU countries, for the period 1960-2001. A simple model of endogenous growth is used in order to highlight the inherently nonlinear relationship between public capital and economic growth and to derive a measure of the growth-maximising public capital stock. Against this background, the empirical analysis provides estimates of the growth-maximising level of public capital for EU countries. The empirical results suggest that there currently is no lack of public capital in most 'old' EU countries.