Impact of public capital on the manufacturing productive performance of Japanese industries

The paper analyses the impact of public capital on the Japanese manufacturing industries from 1970 to 1995. Unlike previous studies, which are based mostly on economy-wide analysis, this study is based on a disaggregated analysis at the industry level. A Generalized Leontief cost function is utilized to estimate the impact of public capital on nine manufacturing industries in Japan. The results indicate that public capital offers no insignificant contribution to the productive performance of these manufacturing industries except for Paper, Textiles and Transport. The paper also suggests that the bubble economy in the 1980s is the contributing factor behind this insignificant effect of public capital.