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...

This paper analyses the degree to which infrastructure reliability and urban economic activity in several African cities is impacted by flooding. It combines firm-level micro data, flood maps, and several spatial data layers across cities through a harmonized geospatial network analysis. The...

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...

This paper takes a first look at the trade effects of China's Belt and Road Initiative, also referred to as the New Silk Road, on the 71 countries potentially involved. The initiative consists of several infrastructure investment projects to improve the land and maritime transportation in the...

The Belt and Road Initiative, due to its diverse and extensive infrastructure investments, poses a wide range of environmental risks. Some projects have easily identifiable and measurable impacts, such as energy projects' greenhouse gas emissions. Others, such as transportation infrastructure,...

This paper develops a computable spatial equilibrium model of Central Asia and uses it to analyze the possible effects of the Belt Road Initiative on the economy of the region. The model captures international and subnational economic units and their connectivity to each other and the rest of...

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...