02385nam a22003617u 4500 pwiiw7541 OSt 20260516120039.0 260315t2026 au ||||| |||| 00| ||eng d OSt eng E22 H54 jelc Gutzianas, Ioannis Crowding in or crowding out? Public and private investment in the Western Balkans Wien : Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche (wiiw), 2026. 20 S., 4 Tables and 3 Figures, 30cm. wiiw Policy Notes and Reports 104 This note examines whether public infrastructure investment crowds in private investment in the Western Balkans and how this relationship compares with the EU. Using Eurostat data for 2000-2024 and a sector-level analysis, it finds that higher public infrastructure investment is generally associated with higher private investment in the region, broadly in line with EU patterns. One sectoral difference stands out: public investment in health infrastructure generates much smaller crowding-in effects in the Western Balkans than in the EU, plausibly reflecting weaker domestic complementarity, given the limited health-related industrial base. Crowding-in effects in the region are strongest in education, followed by information and communication, while energy, water and waste, and transport show more moderate effects, and health exhibits the weakest effect. Overall, the results suggest that scaling up public infrastructure investment can mobilise private capital in the Western Balkans, with particularly high returns in education. Where fiscal space is constrained, prioritising investment towards sectors with stronger crowding-in effects can improve impact, while stronger support for domestic health-related capabilities could increase the payoff from health infrastructure spending. public investment private investment crowding in infrastructure Western Balkans EU Western Balkans Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy Sectoral studies Holzner, Mario Jovanović, Branimir 104 WIIW0000092 wiiw Policy Notes and Reports https://wiiw.ac.at/p-7541.html P 9160 9160 0 0 0 0 BIB BIB 1 2026-03-15 pwiiw7541 0 104 1000010007541 2026-03-15 00:00:00 2026-03-16 P