Economic Analysis of the Investments in Public infrastructure Impacts on Agricultural production in Benin

Abstract

Agricultural activity is to produce foodand raw material and then, it plays an important role in economic and social development of the country by contributing in the gross production growth and by providing employment. In spite of its weight in Benin economy, the sector is charaterized by the small level of the exploitation of its numerous potentials of agro ecological areas, the predominance of small exploitation sizes; its vulnerabilit to climatic hazard, its low productivity, mechanization and intensification levels, ect. This sub exploitation is the results of illiterate of the farmer, the uses of archaic methods and technical production and the shortcomings of direct investments in the sector such as water storage, rural roads, hydro agricultural adjustments, ect. Now, theoritical arguments and historic data reveal a narrow link between the investments in infrastructure and the economic productivity growing, and thus the differnet components of the economy. This paper examines the links between public infrastructures and the Benin agricultural production according to the renewal interest to improve transport, health and education infrastructures. Using Cobb-Douglas model and Benin data from 1980 to 2009, we show that investments in infrastructures, mainly in education and transport, constitute a good politics to improve agriculture for along time.