This paper develops an indicator that combines the area that residents can reach within a certain time of travel with population density to create a proxy for “accessibility”, i.e. access to employment and consumption opportunities. Using a large scale firm level dataset, with nearly one...

Transport costs are a crucial element of any spatial economic model. Surprisingly, good transport cost estimates at a detailed spatial level for the EU are not readily available. In this paper we address this issue by estimating a novel dataset of road freight transport costs for goods for the...

The new economic geography depicts spatial location as the key factor determining the growth performance of an economy and thus provides one of the most suitable frameworks to the study of transport infrastructures. The purpose of this paper is to exploit some of the analytical tools familiar to...

This paper estimates wider economic impacts related to productivity from transport networks in Hong Kong in 2016. Specifically, we use an instrumental variable approach to identify the causal effect of transport network centralities on productivity measured by gross value added. Our...

Core infrastructure, which covers transportation, information and communication (ICT), energy, water and sanitation systems, plays a significant role in economic growth. The development of core infrastructure - one of the European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy (CP) priorities - is heavily funded....

This paper illustrates the story of the Port of Gioia Tauro, a major infrastructure investment co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund in the period 1994-1998, but whose origin dates back to the beginning of the 1970s. It draws from a recent ex-post evaluation carried out for the...

This paper quantifies the causal effect of capital status on road network integration of U.S.micro/metropolitan statistical areas. Road network integration is defined using a class of measurements that evaluate how well a location is connected to all other locations through the National Highway...

Most studies of the effects of transport infrastructure on the performance of individual firms have focused on marginal expansions of the rail or highway network over time. In this paper, we study the short-run effects of a large discrete shock in the quality of transport infrastructure, viz....

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...

Using the United States Census Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) dataset, we documented the severity of the disparity in commuting pattern across the contiguous U.S. The analysis was complemented by a more granular analysis with the Greater Pittsburgh area as the geographic area of focus. In...