PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine whether the state of infrastructure development in Sub-Saharan Africa actually stimulates industrial sector productivity, using a panel data set of 17 countries spanning from 2003 to 2018.Design/methodology/approachThe study used panel least square estimation technique to examine the relationship between the variables.FindingsThe result of the study indicates that the major factor that influences industrial sector productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa is their quantity and quality of telecommunication infrastructure. Analysis shows that the relatively low level of industrial sector productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa is largely due to their poor electricity and transport infrastructure and underutilization of water supply and sanitation infrastructure.Practical implicationsThe government should partner with other developed countries of the world such as Germany, Japan, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, Singapore, United States of America, United Kingdom, Switzerland and United Arab Emirates, which are the top ten countries in infrastructure ranking as currently released by the World Bank, to equally extend their quality infrastructure to their own country for enhanced industrialization.Originality/valueThe novelty of this research lies on the fact it is a cross-country study as against the few empirical studies that focused only on a single country. Also, the study made use of the four main indicators of infrastructure development in an economy, which are electricity infrastructure, transport infrastructure, telecommunication infrastructure and water supply and sanitation infrastructure, to examine its effect on industrial sector productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Government infrastructure expenditure in an emerging market economy is critical for stimulating investment that will, in turn, foster economic growth. Given the recent growth in government infrastructure expenditure and the present deplorable state of infrastructure in Nigeria and in most emerging market economies, it becomes necessary to investigate whether the increasing government infrastructure expenditure actually drives both domestic investment and foreign direct investment (FDI). Thus, this study aimed at ascertaining whether government expenditure on roads infrastructure, transport infrastructure, defense infrastructure, and health-care infrastructure has significant positive relationship with the level of domestic investment and FDI in Nigeria. This study also employed econometric techniques in its investigation such as the unit root test, co-integration test, and error correction mechanism (ECM) in the estimation of the relevant relationships. The result of the co-integration test revealed that there exist long-run relationships between the variables in the models. The result of the short-run coefficients of the error correction estimates showed that government expenditure on road, transport, defense, and health infrastructure has positive relationship with domestic investment and FDI. However, this relationship was found to be insignificant. Thus, we conclude that government infrastructure expenditure is a good driver of investment in an economy.

No abstract

No abstract