Domestic Transport Infrastructure Research Articles

Domestic Transportation Infrastructure and Export Performance of Multiproduct Firms: The Role of Domestic Intermediate Inputs

Domestic Transportation Infrastructure and Export Performance of Multiproduct Firms: The Role of Domestic Intermediate Inputs

ORGANIZATIONAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE POST-WAR RESTORATION OF UKRAINE’S TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS INFRASTRUCTURE

The article presents a comparative analysis of the transport infrastructure characteristics in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. It outlines the fundamental shortcomings and challenges in the development of domestic transport infrastructure before the war, highlighting their impact on the socioeconomic situation in Ukraine. The article further analyzes preliminary estimates regarding the damage inflicted on the transport infrastructure due to hostilities. In light of the these findings, the conclusion is drawn that the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine’s transport infrastructure should adhere to key principles such as multimodality, flexibility, connectivity, sustainability, technology, inclusiveness, productivity, and value creation. The author recommends priority measures for restoring the road, rail, air, and water transport infrastructure, considering both current requirements and future trends. The article substantiates the possibility and necessity of involving international organizations and private businesses in the process of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine’s transport infrastructure.

Valuing Domestic Transport Infrastructure: A View from the Route Choice of Exporters

Abstract A key input to quantitative evaluations of transport infrastructure projects is their impact on transport costs. We propose a new method of estimating this impact relying on widely accessible customs data: by using the route choice of exporters. We combine our method with a spatial equilibrium model to study the effects of the massive expressway construction in China between 1999 and 2010. We find transport costs are 20% lower on expressways than on regular roads. The expressways construction increases aggregate exports by 10% and domestic trade by 14%. It generates 5.1% welfare gains, implying a 150% net return to investment.

Main trends in the development of transport infrastructure: Kazakhstan and international experience

The main and important element of infrastructure is transport, therefore, in order to increase the efficiency of public production, it is necessary to develop transport infrastructure, high-quality transport services in order to ensure the connectivity of the economic area. Currently, any country sets a goal – that is the formation of a modern highly efficient transport and logistics infrastructure. Transport needs to be viewed in a dynamic context in terms of its ability to contribute to the economy. The development of transport infrastructure is multidimensional, which depends on many factors. It has several directions, the evaluation of which requires a new approach to the development of new methods that would ensure the objectivity of research in modern conditions. The paper substantiates the need for effective interaction of railway, automobile, river and sea modes of transport in a balanced distribution of cargo flows, reducing transport costs in the price of goods, which will increase the competitiveness of domestic goods on the world market. The authors discuss the main trends in the development of foreign and domestic transport infrastructure. It is concluded that the development of transport infrastructure is possible due to the development, development of methods and methods of high-performance and efficient use of high-tech technologies, innovative forms and methods of organization, information, and digital technologies.

HIGHWAYS AND GLOBALIZATION

AbstractThis article quantifies the value of U.S. highways. We develop a multisector general equilibrium model with many locations in the United States (i.e., counties) and many countries. In the model, producers choose shipping routes subject to domestic and international trade costs, endogenous congestion, and port efficiency at international transshipment points. Applying the model, we find that removing the Interstate Highway System reduces real GDP by $421–$578 billion. The results highlight the gains from intersectoral and international trade as well as the role of domestic transportation infrastructure in shaping regional comparative advantage.

Joint investment on resilience of cross-country transport infrastructure

• We examine the joint resilience investment on the cross-country transport infrastructure. • The first-best outcomes can be achieved if the resilience investment is verifiable. • The non-verifiability leads to a downward distortion on investment under higher disruption. • The first-best outcomes can still be achieved under non-verifiability if the disruption is low. Unlike the domestic transport infrastructure, the cross-country ones are subject to more diverse and unconventional disruption risks due to the unstable geopolitical conditions, terrorist attacks, and complex landscape and extreme weather events, thus calling for resilience-related investments from different countries. However, such resilience investment made by one country to deal with such unconventional disruption risk is very hard to be verified by other countries (i.e., non-verifiability). This paper establishes an integrated economic model to analytically examine countries’ joint resilience investments on the cross-country transport infrastructure in presence of non-verifiability. Specifically, there is one “investing country” who constructed the infrastructure which is also used by a “host country”. Our analytical results suggest that the first-best investment and market outcomes for the global welfare maximization can be achieved if the resilience investment is verifiable. The non-verifiability is, however, found to cause a downward distortion in the resilience investment and an upward distortion in transport price when the probability of the disruption is higher such that the resilience investment only partially covers the potential loss. On the contrary, when the probability of disruption is low so that the resilience investment can lead to the full loss coverage, the first-best outcomes can still be achieved without any distortion. Our analytical model is also extended to account for the intermodal competition. Although our main conclusions still qualitatively hold, the intermodal competition is found to have uncertain effects on the market outcomes, depending on the interaction between the resilience investment cost and the degree of the intermodal competition.

Access to ports and the welfare gains from domestic transportation infrastructure

This paper quantifies the welfare gains from international and intranational trade cost reductions when inner regions of a country access international markets via coastal ports. Improvement in domestic transportation infrastructure reduces trade costs between inner regions and international markets while leaving coastal regions’ international trade costs unaffected. This asymmetric reduction in international trade costs improves inner regions’ global market access and amplifies their welfare gains from trade cost reductions. Our quantitative application to China shows that improved access to coastal ports amplifies the welfare gains for inner regions by 16%, and the effects are more significant for regions farther away from the ports.

MAP-21 to FAST Act: Did the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act Program Better Support High-Risk Transportation Infrastructure Projects?

The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program acts as the U.S. federal government’s largest direct financing program for domestic transportation infrastructure development. Employing a direct credit support mechanism, the program aims to leverage municipal and private investments to deliver higher-risk transportation projects that nevertheless offer important benefits for the public. Recent policy changes under the 2015 FAST Act may have altered the market-leveraging function, but existing literature has not evaluated this possibility. As a result, this research evaluated the program’s market-leveraging outcomes by investigating whether and how the beneficiary projects’ risk profiles, as measured by project credit ratings, changed between the MAP-21 and FAST Act policy periods. The program will produce higher leveraging effects when supporting lower-rated projects since the riskier projects tend to suffer from higher interest rates in financial markets. After constructing a project-level dataset, the authors employed Linear Probability Model and Treatment Effect regressions to assess the possible relationship between the FAST Act amendment and changes to the TIFIA program’s risk profile. The study also employed a Binary Logit regression for sensitivity analysis. The empirical findings suggest that the proportion of TIFIA-selected projects with AAA/AA/A versus BBB ratings did not differ significantly between the MAP-21 and FAST Act periods. However, the program allocated a larger proportion of its lending capacity to AAA/AA/A projects during the FAST Act period. Given these findings, policymakers may wish to rebalance the program’s objectives if the market-leveraging function remains a priority.

ПІДХОДИ ДО ОЦІНКИ ЕФЕКТИВНОСТІ ФУНКЦІОНУВАННЯ ТРАНСПОРТНОЇ ІНФРАСТРУКТУРИ УКРАЇНИ

The article considers the essence and components of transport infrastructure, there were analyzed the dynamics of passenger and freight turnover for all modes of transport, and identified favorable and unfavorable factors influencing the domestic transport infrastructure. Thus, in the period 2015–2020, the dynamics of freight and passenger traffic of all modes of transport differed significantly. The data of 2020 have undergone special changes due to the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Different approaches to assessing the efficiency of transport infrastructure were considered: Logistics Performance Index (LPI – Logistics Performance Index), Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), Global Infrastructure Index, Infrastructure Index of Ukraine. The first two indices are calculated by international organizations. The Global Infrastructure Index has been proposed by a team of scientists, but is not calculated on an ongoing basis. The last approach, which provides for the calculation of the Infrastructure Index of Ukraine, was proposed only in 2020, so it takes into account indicators only for 2020 and does not provide for the reflection of changes in this index in the dynamics. The results of evaluation of these indices for the transport infrastructure of Ukraine were analyzed. Summarizing the results of the evaluation of the efficiency of the transport infrastructure of Ukraine, it currently demonstrates an average level of efficiency. A comparative analysis of these approaches was carried out. Thus, some approaches are assessing the infrastructure of the country as a whole, paying little attention to its transport component. Other approaches evaluate more than once every few years, which does not always take into account the current situation, which is changing rapidly. It was concluded that it is necessary to develop a single methodology for assessing the effectiveness of transport infrastructure, which would be consistent with international approaches and provide an opportunity to constantly monitor (annually) the dynamics of changes in transport infrastructure.

Directions of legislative and administrative change in the мanagement of motor roads of Ukraine

The state of public highways undoubtedly affects the quality of cargo and passenger transport ation, the level of prices, the degree of employment of the population and the pace of economic development of the state. Consequently, the development of the network management system for highways and improvement of their transport and operational condition is a prerequisite for further socio-economic development of the state and society. Of particular importance are the research directions of the administrative and legal principles of management in the field of motor roads in Ukraine, since the geographical location of Ukraine, subject to the integration of domestic transport infrastructure into the European one, will allow in the future to receive annual international transit transport by road and tourist trips, significant development of international cooperation of the state and significant revenues to the state budget of the country.The article defines the directions of legislative and administrative changes in the management of motor roads of Ukraine.

Highways and Globalization

This paper quantifies the value of US highways and their contribution in shaping regional specialization patterns and facilitating internal and external market integration. We develop a multisector general equilibrium model of interregional and international trade with many locations in the United States (i.e., counties) and many countries. In the model, producers choose shipping routes subject to domestic and international trade costs, endogenous congestion, and port efficiency at international transshipment points. We find that removing the Interstate Highway System reduces real GDP by $619.1 billion (or 3.9 percent) with one quarter due to reduced international market access. We also quantify the value of the twenty longest highway segments and find a range between $2.7 and $55.1 billion with I-5 being the most valuable. Our results highlight the role of domestic transportation infrastructure in shaping regional comparative advantage and gains from international trade. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Valuing Domestic Transport Infrastructure: A View from the Route Choice of Exporters

A key input to quantitative evaluations of transport infrastructure projects is their impact on transport costs. We propose a new method of estimating this impact relying on widely accessible customs data: by using the route choice of exporters. We combine our method with a spatial equilibrium model to study the effects of the massive expressway construction in China between 1999 and 2010. We find transport costs are 20% lower on expressways than on regular roads. The expressways construction increases aggregate exports by 10% and domestic trade by 14%. It generates 5.1% welfare gains, implying a 150% net return to investment.

Using innovative composites technology to reduce the cost of bridge building and help fix the US infrastructure deficit

For over 20 years the Advanced Structures and Composites Center of the University of Maine has been on a mission to bring advanced materials into construction. Clever use of reinforced plastics enabled them to develop groundbreaking bridge solutions. This has not gone unnoticed. The center was recently picked by the United States Department of Transportation to lead a five-year research project to look at the durability of domestic transportation infrastructure. We talk to Dr. Habib Dagher, founding director of the center.

Modeling the Impacts of Free Trade Agreements on Domestic Transportation Gateways, Corridors, and Ports

Canada has recently made progress with several free trade agreements (FTAs), and although the government has carried out considerable analysis of their potential impact on the Canadian economy, little to no work has been done to assess the potential impact on Canada's transportation system. The objective of the research was to estimate the impacts of recent and forthcoming FTAs on Canada's domestic trade infrastructure. This study extended a typical computable general equilibrium simulation of an FTA by estimating high-level domestic supply chain characteristics (i.e., subnational region of origin or destination, sub-national region of exit or entry, international transportation mode, port of clearance) and by converting the resulting trade flows to freight flows measured in tonnage. The results indicate that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) may have had large impacts on Canada's Continental and Atlantic Gateways, especially at the Port of Montreal, Quebec, as a result of trade creation with the EU. CETA also has had impacts on various crossings at the U.S. border as a result of trade diversion with the United States. Simulations, however, suggested that the Canada–Korea Free Trade Agreement has had relatively small impacts, mostly concentrated in the Asia-Pacific Gateway, particularly at the Port of Vancouver, British Columbia. Although the impacts were FTA-specific, this research demonstrated the need to consider FTAs in commodity forecasting and freight transportation planning, because they could make sizable changes to future freight flows on domestic transportation infrastructure.

Domestic transport infrastructure and firms’ export market participation

Investment in transport infrastructure reduces the cost of distance and enables firms to establish contacts over larger distances. Using data from a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms and geographic information system techniques, this article studies the impact of domestic transport cost reductions on firms’ export market participation, taking into account the role of entry costs and other firm characteristics. We estimate dynamic probability models, controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity of firms and for the simultaneity of firms’ export and location decisions. Our results demonstrate a positive effect of domestic transport infrastructure improvements on small and medium-sized firms’ probability of exporting.

TRADE POLICY AND CITY PRIMACY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper examines the relationship between trade policy and city primacy in developing countries. A general equilibrium model was constructed and center‐periphery relations are analyzed, accounting for tensions between agglomerative and distributive forces. By applying the theoretical model through numerical simulations, we analyzed how trade policy affects the interactions between these forces. We distinguished between import tariffs and export trade barriers. The results suggested that trade liberalization can reduce the dominance of mega‐cities in developing countries, but only when improvements are made to internal and external factors inhibiting their export trade. These include improving domestic transport infrastructure and reducing barriers to exports from developing countries by developed nations.

Applications of nuclear techniques relevant for civil security

The list of materials which are subject to inspection with the aim of reducing the acts of terrorism includes explosives, narcotics, chemical weapons, hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials. To this we should add also illicit trafficking with human beings. The risk of nuclear terrorism carried out by sub-national groups is considered not only in construction and/or use of nuclear device, but also in possible radioactive contamination of large urban areas. Modern personnel, parcel, vehicle and cargo inspection systems are non-invasive imaging techniques based on the use of nuclear analytical techniques. The inspection systems use penetrating radiations: hard x-rays (300 keV or more) or gamma-rays from radioactive sources (137Cs and 60Co with energies from 600 to 1300 keV) that produce a high resolution radiograph of the load. Unfortunately, this information is ‘‘non-specific’’ in that it gives no information on the nature of objects that do not match the travel documents and are not recognized by a visual analysis of the radiographic picture. Moreover, there are regions of the container where x and gamma-ray systems are ‘‘blind’’ due to the high average atomic number of the objects irradiated that appear as black spots in the radiographic image. Contrary to that is the use of neutrons; as results of the bombardment, nuclear reactions occur and a variety of nuclear particles, gamma and x-ray radiation is emitted, specific for each element in the bombarded material. The problem of material (explosive, drugs, chemicals, etc.) identification can be reduced to the problem of measuring elemental concentrations. Neutron scanning technology offers capabilities far beyond those of conventional inspection systems. The unique automatic, material specific detection of terrorist threats can significantly increase the security at ports, border-crossing stations, airports, and even within the domestic transportation infrastructure of potential urban targets as well as protecting armed forces and infrastructure.

Beyond Tariffs and Quotas: Why Don't African Manufacturers Export More?

There has been much concern about Africa's recent export performance. Even though tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade have been falling, Africa's share of world exports has declined and most African countries remain highly dependent upon a narrow range of primary commodities for export earnings. This article looks at factors that affect the export performance of manufacturing enterprises in eight African countries. In addition to enterprise characteristics (e.g., size, ownership and education of the manager), policy-related variables also affect export performance. Manufacturing enterprises are less likely to export in countries with restrictive trade and customs regulation and poor customs administration. In contrast, there is less evidence that the quality of domestic transportation infrastructure has a large impact on export performance. Although the coefficient on this variable is negative, it is statistically insignificant in most model specifications.

Why Don't African Manufacturing Enterprises Export More? The Role of Trade Policy, Infrastructure Quality and Enterprise Characteristics

There has been much concern about Africa's recent export performance. Africa's share of world exports has declined and most countries are highly dependent upon a narrow range of primary commodities for export earnings. This article looks at factors that affect the export performance of manufacturing enterprises in eight African countries. In addition to enterprise characteristics (e.g., size, ownership and education of the manager), policy-related variables also affect export performance. Manufacturing enterprises are less likely to export in countries with restrictive trade and customs regulation and poor customs administration. The quality of domestic transportation infrastructure also appears to affect export performance, although the coefficient on this variable is statistically insignificant.

The real domestic product of Indonesia, 1880–1989

The article scrutinizes the existing estimates of domestic output in Indonesia and presents an alternative series of annual data for the period 1880–1989. Although the presented results are rudimentary, the article concludes that per capita domestic product increased by 1.5% per year during 1900–1929. It suggests that the acceleration was to a large extent due to the improvement of domestic transport infrastructure. For several reasons the country lost momentum between 1942–1967, until the rise of international oil prices triggered an unprecedented phase of economic growth in the years 1973–1989, during which per capita domestic output increased by 3.8% per year.