The allocation of transport infrastructure in Swedish municipalities: welfare maximization, political economy or both?

Johanna Jussila Hammes () and Jan-Eric Nilsson ()
Additional contact information
Johanna Jussila Hammes : VTI, Postal: Centrum för Transportstudier (CTS), Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Jan-Eric Nilsson: VTI, Postal: Centrum för Transportstudier (CTS), Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

No 2015:4, Working papers in Transport Economics from CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI)

Abstract: The choice of transport infrastructure projects to include in the National Transport Infrastructure Plans in Sweden is often said to be motivated by the weighing of cost against social benefits. Examining the projects that are included in the Plans, it is clear, however, that not all projects have positive net present values, and are therefore more costly to build than the benefits they create. This paper studies alternative models that might explain the choice of projects. Two political economy models, the district demand and the swing voter with lobbying, are tested, and a model that accounts for the spatial distribution of the projects, as well as the possibility that priorities are based on welfare concerns, is estimated. No support is found for the political economy models. What explains investment volume is the existence of CBA results for a project, which may indicate that welfare benefits have an impact, as do the spatial spillovers from a project’s benefits and lobbying, especially by the municipalities concerned.

Keywords: Distributive politics; Fiscal federalism; Lobbying; Party competition; Political economy; Transport infrastructure; Spatial analysis; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 D72 D78 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2015-02-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol, nep-ppm, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.transportportal.se/swopec/CTS2015-4.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2015_004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers in Transport Economics from CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI) Centrum för Transportstudier (CTS), Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CTS ().