Too much and too fast? Public investment scaling-up and absorptive capacity
研究低收入发展中国家快速扩大公共投资时，受限于技能、制度和管理等吸收能力，能否将额外投资转化为持续产出增长。基于1970-2007年80个国家的世界银行项目数据，发现投资扩张期项目成功率略低，但影响较小，尤其在贫困和资本稀缺国家。
A recent trend in several low-income developing countries has been a rapid scaling-up of public investment. It is argued that in the presence of limited absorptive capacity countries are not able – in terms of skills, institutions, and management – to translate additional public investment into sustained output growth. We test for the presence of absorptive capacity constraints using a large dataset of World Bank investment projects, approved between 1970 and 2007 in 80 countries. Our results indicate that projects undertaken in periods of public investment scaling-up are less likely to be successful, although this effect is relatively small, especially in poor and capital scarce countries. We also verify that this effect is unrelated to large aid flows and donor fragmentation.