The Wider Economic Benefits of Transportation: An Overview

Economic contributions of investments of transport infrastructure are typically assessed from a microeconomic perspective, which tries to identify the link between specific transport infrastructure improvements and the productivity of specific production units. The traditional economic tool of the microeconomic perspective is cost benefit analysis (CBA), an ex ante tool which tries to capture the benefits of time and cost savings --- as well as further gains from logistical improvements and facilities consolidation made possible by transport improvements --- and the associated costs including external costs. The objective of this Round Table sponsored by OECD / ECMT and Boston University is to identify and move towards methods which incorporate the wider economic benefits of transport infrastructure, not typically captured in the CBA estimates of benefits and costs. The aim of this brief paper is to offer an overview of such wider economic benefits ensuing from transport infrastructure investments.