USINGGMMFRAMEWORKTOANALYSETHEROLEOFTRANSPORTINSFRASTRUCTUREINECONOMICGROWTHTHEAFRICANCASE.docVIP

USING GMM FRAMEWORK TO ANALYSE THE ROLE OF TRANSPORT INSFRASTRUCTURE IN ECONOMIC GROWTH :THE AFRICAN CASE . Boopen Seetanaha aUniversity of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius * Corresponding author. Tel.:+230 4541041; E-mail address:b.seetanah@uom.ac.mu (Boopen Seetanah) ABSTRACT Empirical evidences on the importance of transport capital development in fastening productivity and economic development for panel sets, particularly for African countries have been very scarce in the literature. This work attempted to supplement the literature by bringing new evidences from a panel set of 33 African countries for the period 1980-2002. Results from the analysis highlight the importance of transport capital as an element of development. This is also the case for the other type of infrastructure namely communication. Private investment remains the man driver of growth and the important contribution of education, openness are also acknowledged. GMM estimates confirmed the above and further indicated the presence of dynamism in growth modeling. Granger causality analysis further confirmed the positive association between transportation amenities and economic growth, and interestingly a reverse causation exists as well. Crowding in effects as such transport infrastructure on private investment is also observed interestingly it also improves human capital. The other independent variables are confirmed to be important ingredients in their respect in enhancing economic performance. INTRODUCTION Though decision makers and economists salute the importance of transport capital development in fastening productivity and economic development, yet this has received inadequate interest in the literature. Moreover most available research tend to focus on the economic effect of aggregate public capital at national and regional level and they have been mostly based on developed countries’ cases1. Research using cross section and panel data set for sample of countries has even more scarce. Overal