Road accessibility and cohesion in lagging regions: Empirical evidence from Portugal based on spatial econometric models

Anabela Ribeiro, António Pais Antunes and Antonio Páez

Journal of Transport Geography, 2010, vol. 18, issue 1, 125-132

Abstract: A number of transportation infrastructure projects were conducted in Europe during the 1990s with the explicit objective of promoting regional cohesion goals through the improvement of the accessibility of peripheral regions. Given its peripheral situation in the Union, Portugal was a key target for some of these projects. A decade later, it is pertinent to ask whether the new infrastructure achieved its objective of promoting lagging regions. The objective of this paper is to analyze one of the lagging regions in Portugal, to try to establish the link between changes in accessibility levels brought by improvements in the transportation network, and two indicators commonly used in accessibility research (population and purchasing power), while controlling other variables of possible relevance, such as the levels of educational achievement of the population in the region. The analysis is based on the use of spatially autoregressive models which allow the representation of accessibility as spatially lagged variables of first and second order. The results place the contribution of accessibility changes in context, and point at the relevance of education as an alternative policy.

Keywords: Road infrastructure; Daily accessibility; Population; Purchasing power; Education levels; Spatially autoregressive models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692309000398

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:eee:jotrge:v:18:y:2010:i:1:p:125-132

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.03.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().