The Effects of Infrastructure Investments on Services and Wholesale/Retail Productivity: A Panel-Data Evidence From the Philippines

In recent years, infrastructure investments in the Philippines have sharply increased; however, there has been a limited study about whether these have effectively improved productivity, specifically in the Philippines' services and wholesale/retail sectors. This paper examines the effects of investments in roads, bridges, and water supply systems on services and wholesale/retail productivity using the annual dataset from 15 regions in the Philippines from 2017 to 2019. The results of a panel-data analysis with Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) show that investments in roads, bridges, and water supply systems positively influence productivity in services and wholesale/retail, with investment for the construction or rehabilitation of roads having the greatest impact