Publication: Infrastructure and Structural Change in the Lake Chad Region
Date
2022-01
ISSN
Published
2022-01
Author(s)
Lebrand, Mathilde
Abstract
Access to infrastructure supports
economic development through structural transformation. This
paper investigates the links between investments in
electricity, Internet, and transport infrastructure, in
isolation and bundled, and economic development in the Lake
Chad Region. Using data on the expansion of the paved road,
electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades
and two instruments, it provides reduced-form estimates of
the impacts of infrastructure investments on the sectoral
composition of employment. Bundled infrastructure
investments cause different patterns of structural
transformation than isolated infrastructure investments.
Bundled paved road and electricity investments is found to
have reduced the agricultural employment share by 22
percentage points and increased the share of employment
mostly in services. The paper then uses a spatial general
equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional
transport investments, bundled with a large rural
electrification program and trade facilitation measures to
reduce border delays, on economic development in Nigeria,
Cameroon, and Chad.
Citation
“Lebrand, Mathilde. 2022. Infrastructure and Structural Change in the Lake Chad Region. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9899. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36845 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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