Infrastructural Development, Sustainable Agricultural Output and Employment in ECOWAS Countries

Abstract

This study examines the effect of infrastructural development on agricultural output and employment in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) utilizing panel autoregressive distributed lag (PARDL) methodology. This study demonstrates that infrastructures that support agriculture productivity foster employment creation. Estimated results reveal that information and communication technology positively affect agricultural output while access to electricity has positive effect on agricultural employment. Transport infrastructure had negative and insignificant effect on agricultural performance. A major contribution of this paper is that investment in infrastructural development with a view to improving agricultural productivity potentially contributes to employment generation.

Keywords

• C33
• N50
• N60
• O13