More public capital is associated with faster productivity growth: Public capital stock (as a share of GDP) and productivity growth, 1952–2015
| Public capital stock | Productivity growth | |
|---|---|---|
| 1952 | 1.188742843 | 3.7% |
| 1953 | 1.147820168 | 3.7% |
| 1954 | 1.133204973 | 3.7% |
| 1955 | 1.133419177 | 3.0% |
| 1956 | 1.146434972 | 2.4% |
| 1957 | 1.160824372 | 2.4% |
| 1958 | 1.171510094 | 2.1% |
| 1959 | 1.17794572 | 2.5% |
| 1960 | 1.181124362 | 2.1% |
| 1961 | 1.183443826 | 2.7% |
| 1962 | 1.18607448 | 2.9% |
| 1963 | 1.188653465 | 3.1% |
| 1964 | 1.190593455 | 3.1% |
| 1965 | 1.190331262 | 3.3% |
| 1966 | 1.189541587 | 3.3% |
| 1967 | 1.188695582 | 2.8% |
| 1968 | 1.188219947 | 2.7% |
| 1969 | 1.18796816 | 2.1% |
| 1970 | 1.186881399 | 1.8% |
| 1971 | 1.184309221 | 1.9% |
| 1972 | 1.17856577 | 2.2% |
| 1973 | 1.168959828 | 2.1% |
| 1974 | 1.155912541 | 1.7% |
| 1975 | 1.139778754 | 1.9% |
| 1976 | 1.121630914 | 1.7% |
| 1977 | 1.102787491 | 1.4% |
| 1978 | 1.085920382 | 1.1% |
| 1979 | 1.072007192 | 1.5% |
| 1980 | 1.059221143 | 0.9% |
| 1981 | 1.046965518 | 0.7% |
| 1982 | 1.034950947 | 0.2% |
| 1983 | 1.023181268 | 0.6% |
| 1984 | 1.010620907 | 1.1% |
| 1985 | 0.997409121 | 1.6% |
| 1986 | 0.985105024 | 1.6% |
| 1987 | 0.974592961 | 2.0% |
| 1988 | 0.965965433 | 1.6% |
| 1989 | 0.959376362 | 1.2% |
| 1990 | 0.954383725 | 1.2% |
| 1991 | 0.949247434 | 0.9% |
| 1992 | 0.942897478 | 1.6% |
| 1993 | 0.93439725 | 1.4% |
| 1994 | 0.924047201 | 1.4% |
| 1995 | 0.912008893 | 1.2% |
| 1996 | 0.898097232 | 1.5% |
| 1997 | 0.882794244 | 1.0% |
| 1998 | 0.866740645 | 1.4% |
| 1999 | 0.850817204 | 1.7% |
| 2000 | 0.835710192 | 2.1% |
| 2001 | 0.822117046 | 1.9% |
| 2002 | 0.810890455 | 2.2% |
| 2003 | 0.802531823 | 2.5% |
| 2004 | 0.796790497 | 2.5% |
| 2005 | 0.793097924 | 2.4% |
| 2006 | 0.791451664 | 2.2% |
| 2007 | 0.791501577 | 1.8% |
| 2008 | 0.792918504 | 1.2% |
| 2009 | 0.795186997 | 1.1% |
| 2010 | 0.797958845 | 1.3% |
| 2011 | 0.800886387 | 1.2% |
| 2012 | 0.802828907 | 1.2% |
| 2013 | 0.802977634 | 1.2% |
| 2014 | 0.800692968 | 0.9% |
| 2015 | 0.796337307 | 0.4% |
Notes: ICT stands for information and communications technology.
Data on productivity are from unpublished series on total economy productivity from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), available upon request. We adjusted the BLS measure to make it a measure of net productivity growth by stripping out depreciation from the output measure. Public capital stock data is from tables 1.1.7, 7.2A, and 7.1A from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) National Income and Product Accounts. To smooth out the volatile annual productivity series, five-year averages of both productivity and public capital stock/GDP ratios are used.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics total economy productivity data and Bureau of Economic Analysis National Income and Product Accounts data
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