## The Growth Return of Infrastructure in Latin America

_IMF Working Papers, February 14, 2017_

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: Sergi Lanau
- Published: February 14, 2017
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475578959.001

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### Summary
- Examines the effects of improvements in infrastructure on sectoral growth and firm-level investment, focusing on six Latin American countries.
- Uses heterogeneity in the quality of infrastructure across countries and intrinsic variation in the dependence of sectors on infrastructure to identify effects.
- Main finding: better infrastructure raises growth and investment.

### Key findings
- Improved infrastructure could yield large economic benefits.
- If the quality of infrastructure in Colombia increased to the sample median (Czech Republic), GDP growth would increase by about 0.1 percentage points.
- Better infrastructure raises both sectoral growth and firm-level investment (directional finding as stated in the paper).

### Scope and methodology
- Geographic focus: six Latin American countries.
- Empirical strategy exploits:
  - Heterogeneity in infrastructure quality across countries.
  - Intrinsic variation in the dependence of sectors on infrastructure.
- Outcome variables emphasized: sectoral growth and firm-level investment.

### Subjects and keywords (as listed)
- Corporate investment
- Emerging and frontier financial markets
- Financial institutions
- Financial markets
- Infrastructure
- National accounts
- Stocks
- Transportation
- Keywords: Corporate investment, Emerging and frontier financial markets, Global, growth, infrastructure, infrastructure investment, investment, investment analysis, investment plan, investment rate, investment regression, rate of firm, Stocks, Transportation, WP

*Source: Sergi Lanau, "The Growth Return of Infrastructure in Latin America", IMF Working Papers 2017/035, February 14, 2017, https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2017/02/14/the-growth-return-of-infrastructure-in-latin-america-44663*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2017/02/14/the-growth-return-of-infrastructure-in-latin-america-44663_