Does infrastructure development matter for the shadow economy in African countries?

Achieving the “zero hunger” goal in Africa: Beyond the direct effects of infrastructure development

“…Similarly, specifications (3) and (4) show that economic growth is an important transmission channel through which infrastructure development enhances food security in Africa. As Servén, 2010;Moyo, 2013;Ningaye & Ketu, 2023), which in turn lowers the rate of hunger (Harttgen et al, 2013;Soriano & Garrido, 2016). The same conclusion holds when governance (composite index constructed from Principal Components Analysis using the six Kaufmann indicators) is used as a mediation variable as shown in columns ( 5) and ( 6), validating our Hypotheses 1 and 2.…”

“…And the World Health Organization (WHO, 2018) reports that the trend of hunger has reversed, and consequently, the number of undernourished people is increasing, starting in 2015 and is expected to get worse in many developing countries following the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, recent studies have highlighted important benefits of infrastructure development for both formal and informal sectors (Calder on & Servén, 2010;Moyo, 2013;Ningaye & Ketu, 2023), poverty reduction, human development, and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (AfDB, 2018). Therefore, the important question is whether infrastructure development extends its benefits to also reduce hunger in Africa.…”

“…Infrastructure development has been identified as a major driver of economic growth in the extant literature. Indeed, infrastructure development can lead to economic growth through lower transaction costs, productivity growth, and profitability of private investment (Calder on & Servén, 2010;Moyo, 2013;Ningaye & Ketu, 2023). On the other hand, Timmer (2000), Harttgen et al (2013), andSoriano andGarrido (2016) document that economic growth is important to end food insecurity.…”

“…For finesse purposes, disaggregated indexes of the AIDI including transport, water and sanitation, ICT, and electricity are as well used. Several other studies investigating the effects of infrastructure development also used these proxies (Nchofoung et al, 2022;Ningaye & Ketu, 2023).…”

“…The African Development Bank (AfDB, 2018) report adds that Africa's infrastructure development is critical in fostering economic growth and improving the living standards of Africans, because it contributes significantly to poverty reduction, human development, and the attainment of aspiration one of the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Infrastructures by rescuing the poor and unemployed through spurring the productivity of informal sector firms (Ningaye & Ketu, 2023), enhancing human development (Nchofoung et al, 2022), and improving governance quality (Ogunniyi et al, 2020) indirectly reduce the prevalence of undernourishment.…”