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Hydraulic engineering --- Transport. Traffic --- waterbouw --- navigatie --- havens --- World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure --- History --- Sea transport. Seaports --- International Navigation Association [Bruxelles]

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An adequate supply of infrastructure services has long been viewed by both academics and policy makers as a key ingredient for economic development. Over the past quarter-century, the retrenchment of Latin America's public sector from its dominant position in the provision of infrastructure, and the opening up of these industries to private participation, have renewed the debate on the role of infrastructure in the region's development. The focus of this paper is three-fold. First, it documents, in a comparative cross-regional perspective, the trends in Latin America's infrastructure development, as reflected in the quantity and quality of infrastructure services and the universality of their access. Overall, this suggests the emergence of an infrastructure gap vis-a-vis other industrial and developing regions. Second, it provides an empirical assessment of the contribution of infrastructure development to growth across Latin America. Third, it examines the trends in the financing of infrastructure investment - documenting the changing roles of the public and private sectors - and analyzes how they have been shaped by macroeconomic policy constraints.

Accessibility --- Banks & Banking Reform --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financing of infrastructure --- Infrastructure development --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Infrastructure investment --- Inspection --- Land transport --- Non Bank Financial Institutions --- Population density --- Public Sector Development --- Public Sector Economics --- Public utilities --- Road --- Road network --- Road quality --- Roads --- Sanitation --- Trails --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning --- Transport infrastructure --- Transport network --- Transportation --- Transportation services --- Vehicle

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This paper provides a systematic, empirical assessment of the impact of infrastructure quality on the total factor productivity (TFP) of African manufacturing firms. This measure is understood to include quality in the provision of customs clearance, energy, water, sanitation, transportation, telecommunications, and information and communications technology (ICT). Microeconometric techniques to investment climate surveys (ICSs) of 26 African countries are carried out in different years during the period 2002-6, making country-specific evaluations of the impact of investment climate (IC) quality on aggregate TFP, average TFP, and allocative efficiency. For each country the impact is evaluated based on 10 different productivity measures. Results are robust once controlled for observable fixed effects (red tape, corruption and crime, finance, innovation and labor skills, et cetera) obtained from the ICSs. African countries are ranked according to several indices: per capita income, ease of doing business, firm perceptions of growth bottlenecks, and the concept of demeaned productivity (Olley and Pakes 1996). The countries are divided into two blocks: high-income-growth and low-income-growth. Infrastructure quality has a low impact on TFP in countries of the first block and a high (negative) impact in countries of the second. There is significant heterogeneity in the individual infrastructure elements affecting countries from both blocks. Poor-quality electricity provision affects mainly poor countries, whereas problems dealing with customs while importing or exporting affects mainly faster-growing countries. Losses from transport interruptions affect mainly slower-growing countries. Water outages affect mainly slower-growing countries. There is also some heterogeneity among countries in the infrastructure determinants of the allocative efficiency of African firms.

Air --- Air transport --- Bottlenecks --- Costs --- E-Business --- Economic Theory & Research --- Elasticities --- Elasticity --- Infrastructure --- Infrastructure development --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Infrastructure investment --- Investments --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Port infrastructure --- Private Sector Development --- Railroad --- Railways --- Sanitation --- Signals --- Social Protections and Labor --- Tax --- Training --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning --- Transport infrastructure --- Transportation

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Many investments in infrastructure are built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a comprehensive theoretical framework could raise questions about current strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the second Cameroonian national household survey (Enquete Camerounaise Aupres des Menages II, 2001) and the Cameroon case study, this paper demonstrates that investing uniformly in tarred roads in Africa is likely to have a much lower impact on poverty than expected. Isolation from a tarred road is found to have no direct impact on consumption expenditures in Cameroon. The only impact is an indirect one in the access to labor activities. This paper reasserts the fact that access to roads is only one factor contributing to poverty reduction (and not necessarily the most important in many cases). Considering that increase in non-farming activities is the main driver for poverty reduction in rural Africa, the results contribute to the idea that emphasis on road investments should be given to locations where non-farming activities could be developed, which does mean that the last mile in rural areas probably should not be a road.

Accessibility --- Achieving Shared Growth --- Daily transport --- Highway --- Infrastructure --- Infrastructures --- Investments --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- National highway system --- Poverty Reduction --- Railway --- Regional Economic Development --- Road --- Road development --- Road network --- Road projects --- Roads --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Rural roads --- Transport --- Transport costs --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning --- Transport infrastructure --- Travel --- Travel time --- Wealth