Is infrastructure capital productive ? a dynamic heterogeneous approach

Cesar Calderon (), Enrique Moral-Benito and Luis Servén

No 5682, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper offers an empirical evaluation of the output contribution of infrastructure. Drawing from a large data set on infrastructure stocks covering 88 countries and spanning the years 1960-2000, and using a panel time-series approach, the paper estimates a long-run aggregate production function relating GDP to human capital, physical capital, and a synthetic measure of infrastructure given by the first principal component of infrastructure endowments in transport, power, and telecommunications. Tests of the cointegration rank allowing it to vary across countries reveal a common rank with a single cointegrating vector, which is taken to represent the long-run production function. Estimation of its parameters is performed using the pooled mean group estimator, which allows for unrestricted short-run parameter heterogeneity across countries while imposing the (testable) restriction of long-run parameter homogeneity. The long-run elasticity of output with respect to the synthetic infrastructure index ranges between 0.07 and 0.10. The estimates are highly significant, both statistically and economically, and robust to alternative dynamic specifications and infrastructure measures. There is little evidence of long-run parameter heterogeneity across countries, whether heterogeneity is unconditional, or conditional on their level of development, population size, or infrastructure endowments.

Keywords: Transport Economics Policy&Planning; Economic Theory&Research; Banks&Banking Reform; Public Sector Economics; Infrastructure Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/WPS5682.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is infrastructure capital productive? A dynamic heterogeneous approach (2015)
Working Paper: Is infrastructure capital productive? A dynamic heterogeneous approach (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5682

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().