Impact of airport infrastructure investment on the growth of the Angolan economy: An auto-regressive distributed lag analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The airport infrastructure plays capital importance in the development of national trade. It facilitates the flow of people, goods, and services more quickly. Thus, given its importance, this study seeks to analyze the impact of the Angolan investment in airport infrastructure between 2000 – 2020. Design/methodology: This article presents the results of quantitative and qualitative research, based on narrative review and output of the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique, which aimed to analyze the impact of investment in airport infrastructure on the growth of Angola GDP per capita. Findings: The results of the stationarity tests performed shows mixed integration in both I(0) and I(1), which justifies the used ARDL. Similarly, the bounds test showed that there is a very strong relationship between airport infrastructure investment and GDP per capita growth in the short and long run. However, in the Angola case study, the impact that exists is negative, meaning that airport infrastructure negatively impacts per capita GDP growth in both the short run and in the long run. Research limitations/implications: This research has been among the first to analyze the impact of investment in airport infrastructure on the growth of Angola GDP per capita. Besides the contribution of this research, some limitations are the difficulty to find data of investment and the literature about transportation infrastructure in Angola. Originality/value: The analysis of the impact of investment in airport infrastructure in the growth of Angola GDP per capita is a fundamental step that can help public and private entities in making decisions that aim to improve the management of the Angola transport infrastructure.