IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/sajeco/v73y2005i2p211-228.html

An Analysis Of Economic Infrastructure Investment In South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • PETER PERKINS
  • JOHANN FEDDERKE
  • JOHN LUIZ

Abstract

This paper analyses long‐term trends in the development of South Africa's economic infrastructure and discusses their relationship with the country's long‐term economic growth. A database covering national accounts data, railways, roads, ports, air travel, phone lines and electricity was established for this purpose, and may facilitate further quantitative research. PSS (Pesaran, Shin and Smith, 1996, 2001) F‐tests are used to identify directions of association between economic infrastructure and economic growth. These indicate long‐run forcing relationships from public‐sector economic infrastructure investment and fixed capital stock to gross domestic product (GDP), from roads to GDP, and from GDP to a range of other types of infrastructure. There is also evidence of potential simultaneity between specific types of infrastructure and GDP. The evidence suggests three main findings. Firstly, the relationship between economic infrastructure and economic growth appears to run in both directions. Inadequate investment in infrastructure could create bottlenecks, and opportunities for promoting economic growth could be missed. Secondly, South Africa's stock of economic infrastructure has developed in phases. Policymakers should focus on choosing or encouraging the right type of infrastructure at the right time. Thirdly, the need for investment in economic infrastructure never goes away. The maintenance and expansion of infrastructure are important dimensions of supporting economic activity in a growing economy, provided that individual projects are chosen on the basis of appropriate cost‐benefit analyses.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Perkins & Johann Fedderke & John Luiz, 2005. "An Analysis Of Economic Infrastructure Investment In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(2), pages 211-228, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:73:y:2005:i:2:p:211-228
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2005.00014.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2005.00014.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2005.00014.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 1994. "World Development Report 1994," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5977, April.
    2. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin, 2002. "Long-Run Structural Modelling," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 49-87.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schiff, Maurice & Valdes, Alberto, 1998. "Agriculture and the macroeconomy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1967, The World Bank.
    2. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hoang, Thi Hong Van & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Energy consumption, financial development and economic growth in India: New evidence from a nonlinear and asymmetric analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 199-212.
    3. Antonia López Villavicencio & Josep Lluís Raymond Bara, 2006. "The short and long-run determinants of the real exchange rate in Mexico," Working Papers wpdea0606, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    4. Attilio Gardini & Giuseppe Cavaliere & Luca Fanelli, 2005. "Risk Sharing, avversione al rischio e stabilizzazione delle economie regionali in Italia," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 95(3), pages 219-266, May-June.
    5. Kevin S. Nell & Maria M. De Mello, 2019. "The interdependence between the saving rate and technology across regimes: evidence from South Africa," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 269-300, January.
    6. repec:rza:wpaper:029 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. David Blake, 2004. "Modelling the composition of personal sector wealth in the UK," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(9), pages 611-630.
    8. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Schuermann, Til & Treutler, Bjorn-Jakob & Weiner, Scott M., 2006. "Macroeconomic Dynamics and Credit Risk: A Global Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1211-1261, August.
    9. Joan Hoffman, 2000. "The Roots Index: Exploring Indices as Measures of Local Sustainable Development, New York City: 1990–95," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 95-134, November.
    10. Inder Sekhar Yadav & M.A. Lagesh, 2011. "Macroeconomic Relationship in India: ARDL Evidence on Cointegration and Causality," Journal of Quantitative Economics, The Indian Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), pages 156-168.
    11. Abdul Qayyum, 2006. "Money, Inflation, and Growth in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 45(2), pages 203-212.
    12. Garrat, A. & Lee, K. & Pesaran, M.H. & Shin, Y., 2000. "Forecast Uncertainties in Macroeconometric Modelling: An Application to the UK Economy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0004, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. Ghate Chetan, 2003. "The Politics of Endogenous Growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, August.
    14. Norman Myers & Jennifer Kent, 2001. "Food and hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 41-69, March.
    15. Richard Pomfret, 2003. "Lessons from Economies in Transition from Central Planning," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 36(2), pages 245-252, June.
    16. William Shaw & Richard Newfarmer & Peter Walkenhorst, 2009. "Breaking Into New Markets," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2616, April.
    17. John Anderson & Hendrik van den Berg, 1998. "Fiscal Decentralization and Government Size: An International Test for Leviathan Accounting for Unmeasured Economic Activity," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 5(2), pages 171-186, May.
    18. Rock, Michael T., 1999. "Reassessing the Effectiveness of Industrial Policy in Indonesia: Can the Neoliberals be Wrong?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 691-704, April.
    19. Fanelli, Luca, 2006. "Multi-equational linear quadratic adjustment cost models with rational expectations and cointegration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 445-456, March.
    20. J. Mostert & J. Heerden, 2015. "A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Analysis of the Expenditure on Infrastructure in the Limpopo Economy in South Africa," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 227-236, May.
    21. Dailami, Mansoor & Klein, Michael, 1998. "Government support to private infrastructure projects in emerging markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1868, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:73:y:2005:i:2:p:211-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.