Seaport infrastructure investment and economic growth in Korea

A seaport plays an important role in the sector of sea transportations, exports, imports, tourism, and travel, and thus is an important ingredient of economic growth. This paper investigates the causality issues between seaport infrastructure investment and economic growth in Korea by applying modern time-series techniques. It employs annual data covering the period 1970-2002. Tests for unit roots, cointegration, and Granger-causality based on error correction models are presented. The results show that unidirectional causality runs from seaport infrastructure investment to economic growth without any feedback effect. This means that increase in seaport infrastructure investment directly affects economic growth. In order not to adversely affect economic growth, the Korean government and industry should endeavour to overcome the constraints on seaport infrastructure investment.