Public infrastructure capital, scale economies and returns to variety

the industry of the main metropolitan area of the country, in fact, uses the infrastructure stock of
whole of Greece.

Table 10 Infrastructure effects on total output: Athens panel for sectors, 1982-1991

Dependent Variable: ln of Total Manufacturing Output (GPV)____________________________________________________

*** Statistically significant at 1% level, ** Statistically significant at 5% level, * Statistically significant at 10% level

The final table of this set (11) presents the results for the panel that refer to a panel of
industrial sectors for the Rest of Greece. The results of this panel appear to determine the respective
findings for the sectoral panel for Greece as whole (table 9). The estimates for private capital are
statistically insignificant in all three types of regression, while the coefficients for labour and
manufacturing establishments are of high magnitude, positive, and significant. The coefficients for
public capital, although positive and significant, are of even higher magnitude than the respective
estimates for Greece as a Whole. Again here, social infrastructure appears to have a bigger impact
than productive public capital.

Table 11 Infrastructure effects on total output: Rest of Greece panel for sectors, 1982-1991
Dependent Variable: ln of Total Manufacturing Output (GPV)___________________________________________________________________________

Comparing these panels clearly shows that public capital is significant at the regional
(prefectural) level when manufacturing is considered in total. However, while this is also the case for
sectors in Greece nationwide and the nation excluding Athens it is most certainly not the case for the
metropolitan area of Athens. (Some of these issues will be reconsidered in the conclusion to the
thesis.)
4.3 Public capital’s effects on the equilibrium number of manufacturing establishment

Another potential way in which public capital can influence the private economy, in the
context of the model in hand, is its impact on the (equilibrium) number of manufacturing
establishments. The simplest method for the examination of such an effect is via regression. The

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