Public infrastructure spending and economic growth: The case of Mauritania.

Summary While the majority of studies find positive impacts of public infrastructure on economic activity, the issue of public expenditure versus resource allocation remains. This empirical thesis presents a novel work for Mauritania and is limited to three types of infrastructure. First, we study the link between the evolution of the total road stock and GDP per capita through a Coob-Douglas type production function. Our main result is as follows: the road stock in Mauritania has indeed had a positive and significant impact on GDP per capita. Second, we analyze the contribution of health capital to economic growth. By estimating several models, three main results emerge: 1) The level of public spending on health does not have a significant effect on the growth of life expectancy, but it does appear to have positive impacts on the reduction of crude mortality per 1000 people. 2) Public spending on health has a positive effect on overall GDP, but this effect becomes insignificant when it comes to GDP per capita. 3) Initial life expectancy and its growth have positive and significant effects on GDP per capita. Finally, we explore the impact of ICT on economic growth. By studying a production function and a VAR model, we show that both ICT capital and the evolution of fixed telephone subscribers have significantly boosted economic activity.