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This paper provides a broad overview of the infrastructure investment landscape in Canada and our reputation as a competitive destination for such investment. We compare the Canadian infrastructure investment environment and recent outcomes with those of a set of peer nations (G7 countries plus Australia).
Canada has serious reputational issues relative to our peer group when it comes to attracting investment in infrastructure, and these issues correspond to declining rates of foreign direct investment inflows. Federal government spending on infrastructure is also declining, implying an overall lack of investment in infrastructure. This lack of investment is, in turn, manifesting as an increase in Canada's infrastructure deficit and an overall decline in the reputation of the quality of existing infrastructure. Estimates of Canada's infrastructure deficit range up to $600 billion, and the investment shortfalls contributing to this deficit are particularly apparent in transportation and trade infrastructure. Canada has fallen sharply to last place relative to the G7 and Australia in terms of infrastructure and logistics quality.
The most prominent issues driving Canada's declining reputation as a destination for investment include a sharp slide in the ease of doing business, which, in turn, is caused by perceived regulatory and bureaucratic delays (including the time required for construction permits).
An inconsistency in federal infrastructure funding programs and policies (tied to federal election cycles) is similarly problematic. While most of Canada's public infrastructure investment is made by provincial and municipal governments, their smaller and more variable shares of tax revenues do not ensure stable and sufficient levels of infrastructure investment in many regions. This pattern also serves to promote regional inequality, since regions suffering from poor infrastructure may not have the resources required to overcome local infrastructure deficits.
Reliance on PPPs (public-private partnerships) to bolster infrastructure investment may well prove fruitless given the negative experiences Canada's peers have had with PPPs and the already evident frustrations with Canada's existing pursuits in this area. Falling tax rates have failed to attract foreign direct investment flows into Canada, suggesting that tax competitiveness is not a sufficient incentive to overcome the reputational issues associated with inconsistent federal investment policies and growing regulatory and bureaucratic delays.
Addressing these issues will require a stable and long-term strategy (one not subject to Canada's federal electoral cycles) and a serious look at the timeframes and delays for regulatory and bureaucratic processes.




We suggest the federal government place a higher priority on infrastructure investments in critical areas such as trade and transportation infrastructure. These types of infrastructure play an outsized role in supporting national productivity and income. Further, attracting significant levels of private investment will likely benefit from a consistent and predictable trade and transportation infrastructure strategy. Canada requires an integrated and strategic national approach to infrastructure policy and investment. This approach must be based around a long-term focus and will require coordination among federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations governments and the private sector (including coordination with Canada's large pension funds, which represent a significant untapped source of financial capital).
Provincial governments have already expressed an interest and willingness to collaborate on a national infrastructure strategy based on the corridor concept, and the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce has similarly acknowledged the potential merits of applying the corridor concept. Given these endorsements and the evidence presented above, it is incumbent on the federal and other governments to act on formulating a stable, long-term and strategic national infrastructure strategy that pairs government investment and policies to attract private sector investment in all kinds of infrastructure, but most notably in transportation, warehousing and logistics infrastructure.
As part of this, it is critical that Canada address its serious issue of regulatory and policy uncertainty, delays and burdens as these appear to be the most critical aspects of our declining reputation and the most pernicious impediments to achieving infrastructure investment goals and priorities.

Originally published in 1988, this is a collection of symposium papers examining the link between public infrastructure and economic growth. Subjects covered include Economic theories of infrastructure Decision-making, Issues in the supply of Public infrastructure, Life cycle behaviour and the demand for infrastructure, limitations, financial sources and budgeting, the role of the local and federal government, different models and case studies in South Carolina, North Dakota, and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Access Program

This paper reviews the existing scientific literature analysing theoretical and practical results of infrastructure impact on social and economic development. There is no unique concept in scientific literature for determining the notion of infrastructure, for distinguishing and measuring its components and various models which provide different results are used for measuring the impact of infrastructure. Lack of unique methodology in academic literature hinders evaluation of the infrastructure investments impact on social and economic development. The authors emphasize different insights on this relationship which provides wide methodological background but there is lack of conceptual methods which could be adjusted for certain countries and life-spans. Characteristic of each country determines the set of infrastructure components and the aspect of impact on social and economic development: economic growth, income inequality, output, regional competitiveness, labour productivity and welfare. The analysis of infrastructure development impact is based on three main factors: definition of infrastructure, determination and measurement of its components, formation of a model for evaluation of the impact. They are crucial for accurate testing of the impact of infrastructure investments. The authors of the paper present scientific approaches on these factors and provide hypothetical test of the impact of infrastructure on the development in the Baltic States: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The issue of infrastructure investments is very important as infrastructure development in these countries is supported by Structural Funds of European Union and other financial mechanisms. The authors of the paper faced the problem of data availability and the results of causal relationship estimations between growth and infrastructure variables in different countries are presented for the period 1995-2007.

Coastal floods are among the costliest natural disasters in the U.S., comprising nearly one-third of all billion-dollar disasters in the past decade, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Hazard mitigation policy at the federal, state, and local level has historically focused investment in construction of hardened, or gray, infrastructure for shoreline protection. New legislation, such as Maryland's 2008 Living Shoreline Protection Act, shows a shift towards investment in natural infrastructure (NI), which provides the same types of services as man-made infrastructure while also providing additional benefits to people and ecosystems. Applying tools from behavioral economics, cognitive science, and psychology, this research aims to understand how people make decisions to invest in natural infrastructure for coastal risk, reduction, and resilience. We analyzed local and state policies of three coastal NI projects to understand the general decision context. Using established methods from social science and marketing research, we conducted in=depth interviews with decision makers, stakeholders, and experts involved with NI cases to reach a grounded theory about the influence of behavioral and institutional factors (e.g. heuristics, peer-influence, diffusion of innovation) in infrastructure investment decisions. We found that decision makers who are innovators that act as local champions are influenced by social networks to invest in NI.

Infrastructure investment is one of the new sources of growth beside trade. However, the availability of infrastructure has become one of the major problems in the process of economic development in the region. Given the need for huge capital infrastructure in the region and the presence of the financing gap in infrastructure financing, the People Republic of Chinese (PRC) initiated the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Thus, AIIB is expected to accelerate economic development and integration of Asia through the promotion of investment in the infrastructure sector. AIIB have several priority areas include transport, energy, communication, industry, and agriculture. The study used qualitative methods to compare the performance of various Multi Development Banks (MDBs) that existed such as IMF, ADB, IDB and WB with AIIB work plan. The results of this study will be expected to produce policy recommendations related to the formation of AIIB. AIIB initiative is the establishment of a relevant step with the spirit of accelerating economic development and integration of Asia to promote investment in the infrastructure sector. AIIB priority areas including transportation, energy, communication, industry, and agriculture is also a priority in developing countries. Openness in terms of membership (open regionalism) also showed that AIIB not only managed exclusively by the emerging countries in Asia but also opened to countries outside the region. The prospects of AIIB will be determined by how far the founding of PRC government transparency in every process both on stage and in the establishment of operational AIIB, how funding of AIIB direction forward and ensure it will not happen tied financing. This condition will be considered countries in the Asian region to join as founding members of AIIB.