The impact of infrastructure on development outcomes

About the event

Dr Stéphane Straub, Chief Economist for Infrastructure at the World Bank Group, recently spoke to Paddy Carter, Director, Development Impact Research and Policy at BII about his latest research.

The paper discussed during this session presents a meta-analysis of the infrastructure research done over more than three decades, using a database of close to a thousand estimates from 201 papers conducted between 1983–2022, reporting outcome elasticities. The analysis casts a wide net to include the transport, energy, and digital or information and communications technology 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. The results allow for an update of the underlying parameters of interest, the “true” underlying infrastructure elasticities, accounting for publication bias, as well as for heterogeneity stemming from both study design and context, with a particular focus on policy relevant subsectors and developing countries.

Dr. Straub is a Chief Economist for infrastructure at the World Bank Group since September 1st, 2023. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics, Université de Toulouse Capitole (2008-2023), where he remains an associate member. He has held academic positions in the US, the UK and France, and was president of the European Development Network (EUDN) between 2018 and 2023. Dr. Straub’s research focuses on issues of infrastructure, procurement, and more generally institutional development in the context of developing countries.

This event was organised by the Private Sector Development Research Network and hosted by British International Investment.

Additional reading

• The impact of infrastructure on development outcomes – A qualitative review of four decades of literature
• Stephane Straub’s introductory blog as Chief Economist of Infrastructure at the World Bank
• The impact of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure, health and education
• Funding and financing infrastructure: the joint-use of public and private finance