article · Asian Journal of Economics Business and Accounting
An analysis of annual data from Cameroon between 1990 and 2023 explores how public infrastructure, trade liberalisation, and institutional quality influence sustainable development. Using the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing method, the investigation identifies a stable long-run relationship across these elements. Trade openness displays significant negative effects on sustainable development in both the short and long run. Similarly, public infrastructure investment demonstrates a negative long-run effect. Although institutional quality provides a slight positive direct effect, it fails to significantly moderate the impacts of either trade openness or infrastructure development. Consequently, increased trade and infrastructure have not produced better sustainable development results in Cameroon, while institutional capacity remains too weak to alter these relationships. Suggested improvements include enhancing infrastructure maintenance, encouraging domestic value addition, and bolstering institutions overseeing trade, investment, and environmental protection.
Resource-dependent developing economies often pursue trade liberalisation and infrastructure development to drive growth. This analysis shows that without strong institutional oversight and adequate maintenance, expanding trade and infrastructure can actually harm sustainable development. Understanding these dynamics helps policy makers and development organisations focus on governance, domestic value addition, and environmental management rather than purely pursuing physical construction and trade opening.
The abstract outlines macroeconomic and policy research rather than a commercial product or technical invention. It provides early-stage empirical evidence that could inform policy makers, multilateral development organisations, and public investment bodies regarding trade policy and infrastructure planning. The work offers strategic insights on the necessity of institutional strengthening and infrastructure maintenance, but the abstract does not indicate a direct pathway to commercial technology deployment.
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Sustainable development in resource-dependent economies depends on how infrastructure expansion and trade integration interact with institutional capacity. This study examines the effects of public infrastructure and trade liberalisation on sustainable development in Cameroon and tests whether institutional quality plays a role in these relationships. Using annual time-series data for the period 1990 to 2023 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach, the study finds evidence of a stable long-run relationship among the variables (F = 6.911; p < 0.01). In the baseline model, trade openness has significant negative effects on sustainable development in both the short and long run, with coefficients of -0.3283 and -0.3554, respectively (p < 0.01), while infrastructure has a negative long-run effect (-0.0324; p < 0.10). Institutional quality has a small positive direct effect (0.0126; p < 0.10). The error correction coefficient (-0.9237; p < 0.01) indicates that approximately 92% of short-run disequilibrium is corrected within one year. However, institutional quality does not significantly moderate the effects of trade openness (TRADE × IQ = 0.0006; p = 0.602) or infrastructure (INFRA × IQ = 0.0288; p = 0.113). The findings indicate that trade expansion and infrastructure provision have not translated into improved sustainable development outcomes in Cameroon, while institutional capacity remains insufficient to condition these effects. The study recommends improving infrastructure quality and maintenance, promoting domestic value addition, and strengthening institutions governing public investment, trade, and environmental management. Future research could employ disaggregated sectoral or regional data to capture variations that may be masked by aggregate national-level data, which represents a limitation of the present study.
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DOI: 10.9734/ajeba/2026/v26i92376
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