Bridging the Gap: Infrastructure, Services, and Labor Market Integration

Devaki Ghose, Patrik Karpaty, Bengt Söderlund and Yingyan Zhao

No 11394, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: How does transport infrastructure shape services provision, labor markets, and regional inequality? This paper studies the 2000 opening of the Øresund Bridge between Malmö, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark, which sharply reduced travel time. The setting mirrors infrastructure linking peripheral regions to urban hubs, while the border makes unobserved services measurable in trade statistics. The bridge enabled cross-border commuting for on-site services and lowered business-travel costs for partially remote services like consulting. The paper develops a spatial model with commuting, migration, and services trade to separate these channels and quantify welfare effects. Services trade is distance-sensitive, with elasticities from −1.06 to −0.45, but less so than commuting. Lower commuting costs thus generate uneven gains, while lower services trade costs produce more diffuse benefits. Ignoring services understates welfare gains of infrastructure by 18%, especially for farther regions benefiting through services trade via business travel but not commuting.

Date: 2026-05-20
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