Public Expenditure, Environment, and Economic Growth

This paper attempts to develop a model of endogenous growth with special consideration to the role of productive public expenditure in the presence of congestion effect of private capital and environmental pollution. We analyze the properties of the optimal fiscal policy in the steady-state equilibrium when the level of production of the final good is the source of emission. Government allocates its income tax revenue between pollution abatement expenditure and productive public expenditure. In the steady-state equilibrium, optimum ratio of productive public expenditure to national income is less than the competitive output share of the public input; and this ratio varies inversely with the magnitude of the emission-output coefficient. The steady-state equilibrium appears to be a saddle point; and the market economy growth rate is not necessarily less than the socially efficient growth rate in the steady-state equilibrium.