1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation 2
1.2 Problem statement 3
1.3 Definition of investment 5
1.4 Consumption vs. Investment 6
1.5 Research Questions 7
1.6 State of research 8

2 Background 9
2.1 Quantifying the Infrastructure Undersupply 9
2.1.1 Housing 10
2.1.2 Education 12
2.1.3 Transport Infrastructure 13
2.1.4 Underinvestment due to regulatory conditions 15
2.2 Genealogy of fiscal constraint 16
2.3 The origin of European and German fiscal rules 16
2.4 The German debt brake 19
2.4.1 The debt brake on the state level 21
2.4.2 The debt brake on the municipal level 22
2.5 Comparison of national fiscal rule implementations 25
2.6 Germany and fiscal conservatism 28

3 Theory 30
3.1 Political economy of infrastructure 30
3.2 Monetary sovereignty 32
3.3 Mechanisms of German sovereign bonds 35
3.4 Effects of government spending on the private sector 36
3.5 Infrastructure and Economic Growth 38

4 Methodology – The Systematic Literature Review 44
4.1 Information sources and search strategy 47
4.2 Selection criteria 48
4.3 Study selection and screening for eligibility 49
4.4 Data extraction 50
4.5 Risk of bias assessment 50
4.6 Risk of political bias 52
4.7 Maryland Scientific Scale 55
4.8 Study characteristics 56

5 Results 57
5.1 Fiscal rule types and the role of efficiency 59
5.2 The role of flexibility 60
5.3 Effects on municipal level 61
5.4 Secondary findings 63

6 Discussion 64
6.1 Implications for policy reform 67
6.2 Limitations 70

7 Conclusion and further research 71

References 75
Appendix 104