Paul Noumba Um, Stephane Straub, Charles Vellutini
World Bank Research Policy Paper 5105, October 2009

This paper analyzes the impact of infrastructure on growth of total factor productivity and per capita income, using both growth accounting techniques and cross-country growth regressions. The two econometric techniques yield some consistent and some different results. Regressions based in the growth accounting framework suggest that electricity production helps explain cross-country differences in total factor productivity growth in the Middle East and North Africa region. Growth regressions support that conclusion, while also stressing an effect of telecommunications infrastructure. Finally, growth regressions also indicate quite consistently that the returns to infrastructure have been lower in the Middle East and North Africa region than in developing countries as a whole.

Stéphane Straub, Charles Vellutini, Michael Warlters
World Bank Research Policy Paper 4589, April 2008

This paper examines whether infrastructure investment has contributed to East Asia's economic growth, using both a growth accounting framework and cross-country regressions. For most of the variables used, both the growth accounting exercise and cross-country regressions fail to find a significant link between infrastructure investment, productivity and growth. These conclusions contrast strongly with previous studies finding positive and significant effects for all infrastructure variables in the context of a production function study. Thus we conclude that results from studies using macro-level data should be treated with extreme caution. The authors suggest that infrastructure investment may have had the primary function of relieving constraints and bottlenecks as they arose, as opposed to directly encouraging growth.