The core objective of this study is to determine the impacts of improvement and modernization of transport infrastructure on households' income. We analyzed the impacts of a rapid transit system in urban areas of Punjab Province, Pakistan. We have compared the effects of this program in Punjab...

Without realizing the importance of soft infrastructure, hard infrastructure cannot ensure a significant impact on sustained economic development. Unfortunately, Central Asia and Caucasia regions have continued to rely on a physical development model that has resulted in generating revenue but...

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has made massive investments since the late 1990s in highway infrastructure, connecting its rural and urban regions. In this paper, we study the impact of highway investments on the educational choices in rural PRC. Because enhanced connectivity facilitates...

This paper establishes a general equilibrium trade model and adopts the "market access" approach to measure the impact of the high-speed railway (HSR) network on the economic growth of 110 of the main prefecture-level cities of the People's Republic of China, for which we manually collect the...

This study addresses three questions that arise in Asia when formulating, financing, implementing, and maintaining transnational linkages versus purely domestic connections. Firstly, how is optimal economic space to be defined as a useful starting point? Secondly, how can relevant criteria be...

Infrastructure services, from both hard and soft infrastructure, play a vital role in facilitating Asia's export-led growth by keeping the prices of delivered goods in export markets competitive. Efficient infrastructure services lower transaction costs, raise value added, and increase potential...

In the context of production linkages in which downstream producers require freight services provided by transport operators, I show that the strategic choice of using an alternative transport mode does not necessarily induce lower access charges, relative to the standard transport mode....

Pacific economies are confronted with several structural constraints that limit their economic growth, most importantly their small size and remoteness from major world markets. In this paper we study the importance of transport connectivity for Pacific economies when participating in the world...

Nepal's lackluster economic performance during the post-conflict period (that is, after November 2006) has been driven by remittances from the export of labor services and the improved performance of the agricultural sector, which is still very much weather dependent. The authors make the case...

This paper examines the seaports responsible for handling the majority of trade around the Bay of Bengal and identifiesthe projects that will enable trade and contribute to improving maritime infrastructure. It reviews the nature, potential evolution,and primary types of maritime trade around...