Air transport impact on the regional development of Western Europe: a study on potential airport accessibility and international border effects

Susana Freiria, António Pais Antunes and Francisco Calvo-Poyo

European Planning Studies, 2025, vol. 33, issue 11, 1914-1935

Abstract: The impact of airports on society and the economy is increasingly significant. However, most of the works studying this impact are focused on the regions with an airport. But, to what extent does the influence of an airport go beyond the borders of the region where it is located? To address this question, the main goal of this study is to assess the impact of airports on regional development, considering possible regional or national border effects. The methodology used is based on an econometric approach with instrumental variables applied to 778 NUTS 3 European regions, 658 of which do not have an airport. As the main results, a clear border effect has been found, because the impact is stronger in regions with airports than in the remaining regions. However, the results show that air transport may have a significant and positive impact on the regional development of regions without an airport, as well, more specifically on industry-related employment. Moreover, the development of regions with an airport is impacted strongly and positively by airports located abroad. Overall, this study offers valuable insights into decision-making processes related to the improvement of airports and the road connections serving them.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2025.2533938 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:eurpls:v:33:y:2025:i:11:p:1914-1935

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2025.2533938

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().