Transport Infrastructural Integration and its Impact on African Economic Growth

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether there is a positive relationship between cross-border transport infrastructural integration and income growth across Africa. The study employed the generalized method of moments technique and principal component analysis to develop a composite transport index and sample data from Globaleconomy.com for 28 African countries. There is a robust and positive relationship between transport infrastructural integration and income growth across Africa. The analysis also shows that the average sample transportation infrastructural integration index is 6.62, with an average per capita income of $5417.43, and an average gross domestic product growth rate of 4.43%. In contrast, countries that belong to a regional economic group such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) have an average per capita income of $10,174.02, and a transportation infrastructural integration index of 8.12, which is above the sample average. The sample contains ten landlocked countries, with a below sample average per capita income of $4219, a gross domestic product growth rate of 5.04%; and a transportation infrastructural integration index of 6.15. However, a novel finding of this analysis is that SACU landlocked members, when compared with all landlock countries, have a higher transportation infrastructural integration index (6.60), and a higher average per capita income ($8641.71). Therefore, this analysis confirms that increasing transport infrastructural integration across landlocked countries, together with joining regional economic integration groups, such as SACU, will increase average per capita incomes, and this will be transformational for Africa.