EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Cost-benefit analysis of transport investments in distorted economies

Edward Calthrop, Bruno De Borger and Stef Proost

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2010, vol. 44, issue 7, 850-869

Abstract: This paper deals with cost-benefit analysis of investment in transport infrastructure. Its contribution is twofold. Firstly, we develop a general equilibrium model to explore the impact of a small budgetary-neutral investment in transport infrastructure in a second-best setting, where other markets in the economy are distorted by taxes or external costs. The model incorporates different transport modes that are used both for intermediate inputs (freight) and for final consumption (passenger travel). An intuitive operational expression for the net economic benefit of an investment is derived that depends on the way the investment is financed. This expression generalizes recent findings in the literature. Secondly, we illustrate the results numerically using a small example. Our findings show that both the specific financing instrument used and the labour market consequences may have large implications for the net benefits of transport investments. Significant errors may be made in limiting cost-benefit analysis to transport markets only.

Keywords: Cost-benefit; analysis; Transport; investments; Marginal; cost; of; funds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191-2615(09)00146-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Cost-benefit analysis of transport investments in distorted economies (2008) Downloads
Working Paper: Cost-benefit analysis of transport investments in distorted economies (2008) Downloads
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:transb:v:44:y:2010:i:7:p:850-869

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:44:y:2010:i:7:p:850-869