Airport Improvements and Urban Growth

Nicholas Sheard ()

ERSA conference papers from European Regional Science Association

Abstract: This paper estimates the effects of airports on economic growth in US metropolitan areas. The estimation uses a novel technique to identify the effects of changes in local airport sizes from overall changes in the air travel network. Airport size is found to have a positive effect on local employment with an elasticity of 0.03. This means that for every job created at the airport by an exogenous increase in traffic, around four and a half jobs are created outside of the airport. The effect appears to be driven primarily by a positive effect on services employment. Airport size is also found to have positive effects on local GDP, the number of firms, population size, and the employment rate. The magnitudes of the effects on population and the employment rate suggest that the jobs created by airport expansion are spread between existing residents and workers who migrate to the area. In addition, the effect on local employment is concentrated in parts of the metropolitan area that are nearer the airport.

Keywords: Transportation infrastructure; Air travel; Urban growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H54 L93 R11 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa15/e150825aFinal00028.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Airport Improvements and Urban Growth (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa15p28

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