ABSTRACT
This study explores the role of politics and financial development on the infrastructure development over the period 1998–2017 for certain emerging economies, namely India, China, Sri Lanka, Egypt, South Africa, Poland, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Our findings from this study imply that an increase in political openness and financial development does not necessarily result in more infrastructure development. The ordinary least squares (OLS) model that was used shows that the coefficients of financial development and political openness indicators are positive or negative, depending on the country, and suggests that not all the financial development and political openness indicators have positive effects on infrastructure development. A hierarchical clustering analysis was used on Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and found similarity between the economies for each year, and three clusters were formed for each of the 20 years. Thereafter, the principal component analysis was employed to ascertain two major components on the basis of which scatter plots were graphed. This study can be effective in assessing the constraints that reduce the efficacy of infrastructure in each of the nations. The cluster analysis, on the other hand, highlights the similarities of trends between these ten developing economies and indicates that even though all these countries are classified as developing, not all of them show the same patterns.
