Making the Most of Public Investment in a Tight Fiscal Environment: Multi-level Governance Lessons from the Crisis

Making the most of public investment is critical in today's tight fiscal environment. Given that sub-national governments in OECD countries carry out more than two-thirds of total capital investment, they have played a key role in executing national stimulus packages during the global crisis. The effectiveness of recovery strategies based on public investment depends largely on the arrangements between levels of government to design and implement the investment mix.

This report provides an overview of challenges met in the recovery and highlights good practices and lessons learned, focusing on eight country cases: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. As stimulus packages have been phased out since 2010, many countries have moved toward fiscal consolidation and have targeted public investment as an adjustment variable.