Assessing the contribution of land, sea and air transport capital to the economic performance of the small island state of Mauritius

Abstract

Research on the contribution of transport capital to economic growth has so far focused on the concept of ‘overall’ transport capital. The present article innovates by modelling explicitly the contribution of ‘disaggregated’ transport capital in the form of road, port and airport capital to economic performance. A uniquely constructed time series data set dating back to the year 1950 for the small island state of Mauritius is investigated within a dynamic framework which allows for feedback effects. Essentially, road capital and port capital are found to have a more important contribution to Mauritian economic growth than airport capital.

Notes

¹ See SACRA (1999) for a comprehensive theoretical approach.

² See Pereira and De Fructos (1999) and Lighthart (2000) for a complete treatment of feedback effects.

³ This methodology has also been widely used in both classical and recent literature for instance by, Munnell (1990), Sturm and de Haan (1995). More recently Jacob et al. (1997), Lighthart (2000), Canning and Bennathan (2000) and Kamps (2003) among others also constructed capital stock using the PIM.