Open AccessAggregate and Regional Economic Effects of New Railway Infrastructure
Author(s) -
Wolfgang Polasek,
Wolfgang Schwarzbauer,
Richard Sellner
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
review of economic analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1973-3909
DOI - 10.15353/rea.v2i1.1492
Subject(s) - transportation infrastructure , aggregate (composite) , econometric model , economics , econometrics , regional science , spatial econometrics , economic geography , transport infrastructure , aggregate data , geography , transport engineering , engineering , statistics , mathematics , composite material , materials science
Economists expect positive returns to investments in infrastructure. However a project with higher national returns might have less favorable effects on a regional level than the alternative. Therefore new infrastructure should also be assessed on a regional level, but econometric evaluation models are scarce, especially in regional science. This paper proposes new approaches to evaluate infrastructure by a dynamic spatial econometric model that allows long-term predictions. We investigate the regional effects for 2 Austrian railway projects and show that infrastructure returns are positive on an aggregate and at a regional level, and spatial variation can be large.