Academics and policy makers have long considered an adequate supply of infrastructure services to be essential for economic development. This paper reviews recent theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of infrastructure development on growth and income distribution. The theoretical...

If the South Asia region hopes to meet its development goals and not risk slowing down or even halting growth, poverty alleviation, and shared prosperity, it is essential to make closing its huge infrastructure gap a priority. Identifying and addressing gaps in the data on expenditure, access,...

Economic development is affected by infrastructure services in both volume and quality terms. However, the quality of infrastructure is relatively difficult to measure and assess. The current paper, using firm-level data collected by a business environment assessment survey in 26 countries in...

Infrastructure contributed half a percentage point to the Republic of Congo's annual per capita GDP growth from 2001 to 2006. If the country's infrastructure were improved to the level seen in Mauritius, the regional leader, it could contribute more than 3 percentage points to annual per capita...

Despite general economic decline and power-supply deficiencies, infrastructure made a modest net contribution of just less than half a percentage point to Zimbabwe's improved per capita growth performance in recent years. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's...

The poor state of Cameroon's infrastructure is a key bottleneck to the nation's economic growth. From 2000 to 2005, improvements in information and communications technology (ICT) boosted Cameroon's growth performance by 1.26 percentage points per capita, while deficient power infrastructure...

Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Burkina Faso's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade, much of it due to improvements in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's...

Improvements in infrastructure across Sudan in recent years have contributed 1.7 percentage points to the country's per capita growth. Consistent with trends in other countries, the ICT revolution that swept Africa contributed more than any other sector to growth in Sudan. Raising the...

Infrastructure made a net contribution of around 1 percentage point to Angola's improved per capita growth performance in recent years, despite unreliable power supplies and poor roads, which each holding back growth by 0.2 percentage points. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to...

Infrastructure contributed 1 percentage point to Senegal's improved per capita growth performance between 2000 and 2005, placing it in the middle of the distribution among West African countries. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries...