Institutional Quality, Infrastructure and Economic Growth in Africa

Journal of African Development (forthcoming), Special issue on Infrastructure & Finance in Africa.

Posted: 9 Mar 2021

See all articles by Herman Sahni

Herman Sahni

Baldwin Wallace University

Christian Nsiah

Independent

Bichaka Fayissa

Middle Tennessee State University

Date Written: February 3, 2021

Abstract

We use a panel data set of 46 African countries over the 2003-2015 period to study the role of institutional quality in infrastructure-led growth. Based on causal analysis, we show large positive effects on growth for countries with strong institutional quality in comparison with their weak institutional quality counterparts. This result is not sensitive to the choice of a particular measure of infrastructure or of institutional quality. Our results could explain the presence of nonlinearities when estimating infrastructure-led growth and, at the same time, emphasize the importance of complementarities influencing such an estimation.

Keywords: Infrastructure, Governance, Rule of Law, ICT, Transport, Electricity, Water and Sanitation, Economic Growth, Africa, World Bank, Fixed effects, Threshold Analysis, System GMM estimation, Panel data

JEL Classification: H54, O40, O43, O47, O55

Suggested Citation

Sahni, Herman and Nsiah, Christian and Fayissa, Bichaka, Institutional Quality, Infrastructure and Economic Growth in Africa (February 3, 2021). Journal of African Development (forthcoming), Special issue on Infrastructure & Finance in Africa. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3778399

Herman Sahni (Contact Author)

Baldwin Wallace University ( email )

Christian Nsiah

Independent ( email )

Bichaka Fayissa

Middle Tennessee State University

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