The effects of export-facilitating quality infrastructure on Africa’s exports

Purpose The continuous export challenges due to the inadequate quality infrastructure have brought to the fore the importance of export facilitation-quality infrastructure. Different infrastructure investments have been implemented to facilitate export; however, the outcomes were different across export facilitation infrastructures. This study investigates Africa’s export effects of the implemented export-facilitating quality infrastructure. Design/methodology/approach An augmented gravity model is specified that is derived from the Helpman, Melitz and Rubenstein framework, which has two steps in the specification and estimation of the model. The extensive margin is the first step – the probability of export – while the second step is the intensive margin of export – the actual export values or volumes. Findings The main drivers of the decision to export are telecommunication infrastructure, internet usage and the logistic performance index. At the intensive margin of export, exporting time, the proliferation of telecommunication infrastructure and improvement in the logistics performance index significantly improve the intensity of export, while it is not the case for internet infrastructure usage. Thus, the soft-quality infrastructure has mixed outcomes at both export margins, while the hard-quality infrastructure is insufficient and ineffective for export facilitation, which invalidates the study’s hypothesis that export-facilitating quality infrastructure stimulates exports. Practical implications The implemented export-facilitating quality infrastructure measures have achieved marginal improvement in exports. This is due to the inadequate development finance and investment towards enhancing export-facilitating quality infrastructure. Thus, extensive quality infrastructure is needed to facilitate and intensify exports for sustainable development in Africa. Originality/value This study departs from previous studies by investigating export facilitation from the lens of export-oriented quality infrastructure rather than the trade time and costs as dominated in the literature. Moreover, the determination of the extent to which quality infrastructure has influenced the probability of export is rarely investigated.