Infrastructure development and economic growth in South Africa: a review of the accumulated evidence. Policy Paper No 12

This paper provides a broad overview of the relationship between infrastructure and growth, focusing on the South African case. The paper develops an intuitive theoretical framework in which to analyse this relationship, identifying \u85ve speci\u85c channels through which infrastructure may e¤ect growth: as a factor of production, a complement to other factors of production, a stimulus to factor accumulation, a stimulus to aggregate demand and a tool of industrial policy. A framework is developed for evaluating empirical analyses of this relationship, which explores the implications of di¤erent de\u85nitions and measures of infrastructure and of potential data and estimation challenges. The empirical literature on South Africa is then assessed against this framework.