Reducing paperwork and red tape at national borders creates as much wealth as building massive new physical highways.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Optimal Road Investments in the CEMAC Region
SSRN · 6397299
The Takeaway
While we usually assume physical infrastructure is the main hurdle for development in poor regions, this paper shows that bureaucratic 'border friction' is such a severe bottleneck that fixing trade rules is economically equivalent to multi-billion dollar engineering projects.
From the abstract
This paper applies a quantitative spatial framework to identify and characterize optimal road investments in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC). Leveraging high-resolution data on population, wealth, agricultural production, conflict, and border frictions, we construct a detailed transport network graph to assess both potential and planned projects in the region. Through partial and general equilibrium analyses, we determine market-access and welfare-maximizing investm