Does Infrastructure Alleviates Poverty in Developing Countries?

Infrastructure has largely been ignored in the assessment of poverty in developing countries. This paper attempts to make some contribution in the establishing the ingredients to alleviate poverty by exploring the impact of infrastructure on the urban poor in sample of 20 developing countries, over the period 1980-2005. The results from the static fixed effect and also the dynamic GMM model both reveal that transport and communication infrastructure are indeed an efficient tool in fighting urban poverty. Panel causality analysis also validated the results. Hence the main policy concern is how to improve access of the urban poor to such an asset.Urban Poverty, Infrastructure, Developing Countries

Does Infrastructure Matter In Tourism Development?

This paper investigates the significance of infrastructure as a factor in destination development. The classical demand for international tourism function is extended to include a proxy for infrastructure. An application involving the island of Mauritius is presented whereby total tourist arrivals as well as arrivals from Europe/America, Asia and Africa are modelled. The  findings show that tourists are sensitive to the infrastructure of the island, particularly those from Europe/America and Asia. Tourism infrastructure, income of tourists, distance, and relative prices are important ingredients in their own respect in the tourism demand equation.Keywords: Infrastructure, Tourism, Dynamic Panel dat