Widely disparate results have flowed from various attempts to analyze the impact of public investment in tangible infrastructure on measures of economic activity. The author takes the substantial body of data put together by Munnell and Cook for 48 states over the years 1970 to 1986 and uses the...

Budget deficits in the United States and six OECD nations are adjusted for inflation so as to correspond to changes in real net debt. Adjusted high-employment or cyclically-corrected deficits are then found to be positively related, and more clearly and sharply than unadjusted deficits, to...