Assessing the Impact of Infrastructure Quality on Firm Productivity in Africa : Cross-Country Comparisons Based on Investment Climate Surveys from 1999 to 2005

Escribano, Alvaro ; Guasch, J. Luis ; Pena, Jorge

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADVERSE EFFECTS;    AFFORDABILITY OF INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES;    AIR;    AIR TRANSPORT;    ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5191
RP-ID  :  WPS5191

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper provides a systematic,empirical assessment of the impact of infrastructure qualityon the total factor productivity (TFP) of Africanmanufacturing firms. This measure is understood to includequality in the provision of customs clearance, energy,water, sanitation, transportation, telecommunications, andinformation and communications technology (ICT).Microeconometric techniques to investment climate surveys(ICSs) of 26 African countries are carried out in differentyears during the period 2002 6, making country-specificevaluations of the impact of investment climate (IC) qualityon aggregate TFP, average TFP, and allocative efficiency.For each country the impact is evaluated based on 10different productivity measures. Results are robust oncecontrolled for observable fixed effects (red tape,corruption and crime, finance, innovation and labor skills,etc.) obtained from the ICSs. African countries are rankedaccording to several indices: per capita income, ease ofdoing business, firm perceptions of growth bottlenecks, andthe concept of demeaned productivity (Olley and Pakes 1996).The countries are divided into two blocks:high-income-growth and low-income-growth. Infrastructurequality has a low impact on TFP in countries of the firstblock and a high (negative) impact in countries of thesecond. There is significant heterogeneity in the individualinfrastructure elements affecting countries from bothblocks. Poor-quality electricity provision affects mainlypoor countries, whereas problems dealing with customs whileimporting or exporting affects mainly faster-growingcountries. Losses from transport interruptions affect mainlyslower-growing countries. Water outages affect mainlyslower-growing countries. There is also some heterogeneityamong countries in the infrastructure determinants of theallocative efficiency of African firms.