Have Collapses in Infrastructure Spending led to Cross-Country Divergence in Per Capita GDP?

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: This paper explores whether the post-1980 decline in infrastructure investment in developing countries is a source of growing disparities in world per capita GDP. I start by reviewing the literature on the infrastructure-productivity link, arguing that a balanced reading of previous studies points to a significant effect of infrastructure provision on productivity. I then empirically study whether retrenchments in infrastructure provision have played a role in growing disparities using a data set of country-level infrastructure stocks for 121 countries since 1960. Cutbacks in infrastructure investment appear to be at most a minor cause of growing divergence in per capita incomes.

Keywords: infrastructure; public capital; convergence; productivity; economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H54 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2007-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2007/wp52_2007.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Have Collapses in Infrastructure Spending Led to Cross-Country Divergence in per Capita GDP? (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:52

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