The Impact of Infrastructure on Development Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

We perform a meta-analysis of the infrastructure research done over several decades, using over a thousand estimates from 221 papers reporting outcome elasticities. We include the transport, energy, and digital or information and communication technology (ICT) sectors, and the whole set of outcomes covered in the literature, including output, employment and wages, inequality and poverty, trade, education and health, population, and environmental aspects. Our results update the underlying parameters of interest, the “true” underlying infrastructure elasticities, accounting for publication bias, as well as for heterogeneity stemming from study design and context, with a particular focus on developing countries. Our results support a positive and significant impact of infrastructure on development outcomes, but also important heterogeneity across sectors and countries. While effects appear larger in developed countries for digital and energy studies, cross-sectoral and transport studies based on developing countries produce larger elasticities.