The Effects of Highway Tolls on Private Business Activity – Results from a Natural Experiment

João Pereira Dos Santos (), David B. Audretsch () and Dirk Dohse
Additional contact information
David B. Audretsch: Institute for Development Studies, Indiana University, 1315 East 10th Street, SPEA Room 201, Bloomington

No 107, GEE Papers from Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia

Abstract: The paper studies the impact of a switch from free to charged highway provision on firm numbers and private sector employment in a panel of Portuguese municipalities covering the period 2007–2013. It exploits the fact that tolls on certain highways in Portugal were unexpectedly introduced in reaction to the sovereign debt crisis to establish causality. Results from a difference-in-differences analysis indicate a significantly negative effect of highway tolls on number of firms and employment in treated municipalities vis-à-vis the comparison group. We also find negative effects of tolls in municipalities not directly traversed by the treated highways, with larger firms and manufacturing firms being most strongly affected.

Keywords: infrastructure provision; highway tolls; regional economic development; natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 R12 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2018-06, Revised 2018-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-knm and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.gee.gov.pt/RePEc/WorkingPapers/GEE_PAPERS_107.pdf First version, 2018 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The effects of highway tolls on private business activity—results from a natural experiment (2020)
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:mde:wpaper:0107

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GEE Papers from Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joana Almodovar ().