How Relevant Is Infrastructure to Growth in East Asia?

This paper seeks to shed some light on the extent to which infrastructure sub-sectors - energy, telecommunications, water supply, sanitation, and transport - contributed to growth in East Asia during 1985-2004. It also attempts to provide additional insights on whether the relationship between infrastructure and growth depends on five additional variables: the degree of private participation in infrastructure, the quality of governance, the extent of rural-urban inequality in access to infrastructure services, country income levels, as well as geography. The findings show that greater stocks of infrastructure were indeed associated with higher growth. However, a more nuanced look at the sensitivity of infrastructure impacts on the five additional variables yields different results, with some sectors supporting conventional expectations and others yielding mixed or counter-intuitive results. In particular, the telecom and sanitation sectors yield statistically significant results supporting the a priori hypotheses; electricity and water infrastructure provide mixed results; and road infrastructure consistently contradicts a priori expectations. The results are consistent with the widely-accepted idea in policy research that infrastructure plays an important role in promoting growth, as well as with the viewpoint that certain countries' endowments influence the growth-related impacts of infrastructure.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Seethepalli, Kalpana, Bramati, Maria Caterina, Veredas, David
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2008-04
Subjects:	ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE, ACCOUNTING, ADB, AIR, AIR TRANSPORT, ALTERNATIVE MODES, ALTERNATIVE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION, BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT, CITIZENS, CORRUPTION, DATA AVAILABILITY, DATA QUALITY, DECENTRALIZATION, DIRECT INVESTMENT, ECONOMETRICS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC GROWTH, ECONOMIC POLICIES, ECONOMIES OF SCALE, ELASTICITIES, ELASTICITY, EMPLOYMENT, EXTERNALITIES, FINANCE INFRASTRUCTURE, FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE, GOOD GOVERNANCE, GOVERNANCE INDICATORS, GOVERNANCE QUALITY, GRAND CORRUPTION, GROWTH PERFORMANCE, GROWTH RATE, GROWTH RATES, HUMAN CAPITAL, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, INCOME, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, INCOME LEVEL, INCOME LEVELS, INEQUALITY, INFLATION, INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT, INFRASTRUCTURE PRIVATIZATION, INFRASTRUCTURE REFORM, INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES, INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY, INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, INVESTMENT CLIMATE, LIVING STANDARDS, LOW INCOME COUNTRIES, MACROECONOMICS, MEASUREMENT ERROR, MEASUREMENT ERRORS, MONETARY ECONOMICS, NATIONAL INCOME, NATIONAL POLICIES, NATURAL RESOURCES, PACIFIC ISLANDS, PACIFIC REGION, PER CAPITA INCOME, PETTY CORRUPTION, POLICY IMPLICATIONS, POLITICAL ECONOMY, POLITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, POLITICAL INSTABILITY, POOR GOVERNANCE, POOR PERFORMANCE, POPULATION GROWTH, PRODUCTIVITY, RAILWAYS, REVERSE CAUSALITY, ROAD, ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE, ROAD NETWORK, ROADS, SANITATION, SAVINGS, SAVINGS RATES, SCHOOLS, SOCIAL INTERACTIONS, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, TAX, TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE, TELEPHONE LINES, TRANSACTION COSTS, TRANSPARENCY, TRANSPORT, TRANSPORT COSTS, TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORTATION, TRUCKS, URBAN POPULATION, URBANIZATION, UTILITIES, WATER SUPPLY,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/04/9365206/relevant-infrastructure-growth-east-asia https://hdl.handle.net/10986/6727
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