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Transcript
The wider economic
impacts of transport
investments
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
SUMMARY
WIDER ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS
The development of transport infrastructure engenders economic growth.
Several studies have demonstrated that investments in transport capital reduce the costs of transport and production, and thus contribute to economic
growth and productivity. In addition to these long run impacts during the
operation phase, there are more immediate economic impacts during the
construction phase.
The economic impacts of new and improved transport capacity are complex
and often indirect. Transport infrastructure investments will not improve
the economic vitality of a region unless it has sufficient economic capacity
and the labour, land-use, housing and economic development policies, for
example, supporting the positive economic development. Investments in capacity are often necessary but they may not create conditions sufficient for
economic growth.
Transport infrastructure investments require public financing. Feasibility
assessment is needed to ensure reasonable and acceptable allocation of allowances. Relevant economic, environmental and social impacts should be
considered.
There is an increasing awareness within the transport sector, that decisions
concerning transport system development are associated with scale effects
and externalities that produce more than just travel costs savings. The planners and decision-makers need to know more about the wider economic
impacts regarding individual infrastructure projects and also more generally concerning transport policies.
AVAILABLE TOOLS FOR ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Transport sector has a long tradition of using the principles of practical cost
benefit analysis (CBA) in transport project appraisal that analyses the primary impacts of transport project proposals. The standard transport project
assessment is necessary but not sufficient for the estimation of the wider
economic impacts.
There are several analytical techniques for the estimation of the economic
development impacts, varying from simple case studies and surveys to
complex economic simulation modelling. However, there is no single analytical tool that is equally useful to all of the information needs in the planning
and decision making. The purpose and level of desired sophistication of the
analysis varies.
Computable General Equilibrium models (CGE) can be considered powerful
tools to be used in the assessment of economic impacts of infrastructure investments. In this project, RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn CGE-models have
been defined to be used in the assessment of rail investments in Finland and
in Sweden. The use of these models is, however, rather expensive and requires specific skills and knowledge.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
2
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
This project has aimed to tackle the contradicting needs for a complex CGEmodelling and the desired easiness and flexibility of the analysis: A spreadsheet tool with a streamlined interface that uses the results of a large number of previously made CGE-model simulations.
NEW PLANNING TOOLS WEBRAILSWE AND WEBRAILFIN
The development of the tool led to twin tools that were named WebRailSwe
and WebRailFin. The tools are made for a quantitative approximation of the
wider economic impacts of large rail investments in the national areas of
Sweden or Finland. The wider economic impacts calculated by this tool are
supplementary to the results of a standard project assessment (CBA).
The tools use generalised results of RegSweDyn and RegFinDyn CGEmodelling. The Swedish tool covers 8 areas (Nuts 2) and is based on generalised results of 128 scenario simulations. The Finnish tool covers 4 areas
(Nuts 2 except Åland) and is based on a total of 200 scenario simulations.
Both tools contain four main parts: 1) Basic calculation where the user enters the input parameters and receives the main results of the calculation, 2)
Base scenario 2013–2040, that defines the reference alternative for the investment under investigation, 3) calculation of the investment shock and 4)
calculation of the productivity shock. The four economic indicators calculated by the tools are real GDP, real household consumption, employment and
population.
The basic case of using the tools is to calculate the wider economic impacts
of a particular rail investment. The tools can also be used to compare the
economic impacts of similar investment in various national areas. In addition, the projections of the regional Base scenarios may be useful as such.
The tools can calculate only at Nuts 2 level, but the relative results may be
used to approximate economic impacts at Nuts 3 level, too.
CONCLUSIONS
It has been proved that it is possible to have a tool that is relatively simple
to use but gives results that are based on comprehensive CGE-modelling.
This can be considered a promising start for a wider use of advanced modelling of economic impacts in the transport sector. However, the results of this
project, WebRailSwe and WebRailFin, are only applicable to rather large rail
investments, and the results are calculated and presented on a spatial resolution that is rather coarse. Further work is needed to define similar tools
for road investments and other forms of transport improvements, and to define the spatial resolution of the tools.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
3
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
FOREWORD
The Bothnian Green Logistic Corridor (BGLC) is an international project working to develop the infrastructure on
the Corridor and its connections. The Bothnian Corridor transport network connects northern Europe and its rich
natural resources to the most densely populated areas in Europe. The Bothnian Corridor is a strategically significant
artery for securing efficient raw material transport and sustainable economic growth in Northern Europe. The project brings together public authorities and private stakeholders to cooperate for future transnational transport policies and actions.
Work Package 5 of the BGLC-project aims to increase the knowledge and understanding of the economic impacts of
infrastructure development on industrial development and new potential, on their value chains, and on regional
economy. This project ‘Wider economic impacts of transport investments’ is Activity 5.3 of the Work Package 5.
The objectives for the project in hand were to elaborate the concepts and mechanisms of the wider economic impacts of transport investments and, to develop a tool to assess those impacts. This report of the economic impacts of
transport investment is the first deliverables of this project. The other deliverables are two assessment tools developed in the Microsoft Excel environment to calculate the economic development impacts of large rail infrastructure
investments in Sweden (WebRailSwe2014.xlsx) and in Finland (WebRailFin2014.xlsx). The tools are presented and
demonstrated in this report.
The methodological challenge with the tools has been the idea to combine complex computable general equilibrium
(CGE) modelling with a need to have a flexible and “simple” tool. This project proves that such tool is possible to
make. However, further work is needed to define similar tools for road investments and other forms of transport
improvements. The spatial resolution should then be defined to Nuts 3, too.
The Steering Group of this study included the following representatives
Jukka Lindfors, Council of Tampere Region
Pentti Hämäläinen, Council of Tampere Region
Hannu Siitonen, Uusimaa Regional Council
Erkki Vähätörmä, Uusimaa Regional Council
The visiting representatives of the Uusimaa Regional Council in the Steering Group meetings during the project have
been Ilona Mansikka, Markku Hyypiä and Olli-Pekka Hatanpää.
This study was conducted by a following consultant team:
Heikki Metsäranta, Strafica ltd, project manager
Professor Hannu Törmä, University of Helsinki, Ruralia Institute, RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn modelling
Jouko Kinnunen, Statistics and Research Åland, development of the WebRailFin and WebRailSwe tools
Seppo Laakso, Urban Research TA ltd, the theoretical framework of economic development impacts (Chapter 3)
Urszula Zimoch the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute, the economic modelling tools (Chapter 4).
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
4
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
CONTENT
1
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................... 6
2
THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS – AN OVERVIEW ............................................................ 7
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
3
THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS........................................................... 11
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
4
ECONOMIC IMPACTS IN TRANSPORT DECISION MAKING.................................................................................................................................. 7
THE DIRECT ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS.................................................................................................................. 7
TYPES AND MECHANISMS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS ............................................................................................................... 8
ARE WIDER ECONOMIC IMPACTS ADDITIONAL TO DIRECT TRANSPORT BENEFITS? ................................................................................... 9
THE SPATIAL SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
IMPACTS ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EMPLOYMENT ................................................................................................................................. 11
IMPACTS ON AGGLOMERATION, COMPETITION AND LABOUR SUPPLY ........................................................................................................ 12
IMPACTS ON LAND USE AND PROPERTY VALUES............................................................................................................................................ 13
POTENTIAL FOR WIDER DEVELOPMENT OF LAND USE ................................................................................................................................. 14
TOOLS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT .................................................................................. 16
4.1 TRANSPORT PROJECT ASSESSMENT (COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS CBA) ....................................................................................................... 16
4.2 SURVEYS, INTERVIEWS AND MARKET STUDIES .............................................................................................................................................. 17
4.2.1
Interviews and surveys .....................................................................................................................................................................17
4.2.2
Market studies ......................................................................................................................................................................................18
4.3 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS – CASE STUDIES ..................................................................................................................................................... 18
4.4 LAND-USE–TRANSPORT INTERACTION SIMULATION MODELS .................................................................................................................... 19
4.5 ECONOMIC MULTIPLIER – INPUT –OUTPUT (IO) MODELS .......................................................................................................................... 19
4.6 AN OVERVIEW OF COMPUTABLE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM (CGE) MODELS ............................................................................................... 20
4.7 THE REGFINDYN MODEL .................................................................................................................................................................................. 22
4.8 INTEGRATED CGE – TRANSPORT MODELS ..................................................................................................................................................... 24
4.9 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24
5
A PLANNINGTOOL FOR ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT ........................................................................................... 26
5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................................................................... 26
5.2 REQUIRED BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND PREPARATORY WORK ........................................................................................................ 27
5.2.1
The basic calculation .........................................................................................................................................................................27
5.2.2
Additional options ..............................................................................................................................................................................29
5.3 THE RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29
5.4 THE CGE-MODELLING TO CREATE THE RESULT DATA BANKS FOR THE PLANNING TOOLS .................................................................... 30
5.4.1
Data sources and dimensions .........................................................................................................................................................30
5.4.2
Population dynamics .........................................................................................................................................................................32
6
DEMONSTRATION OF THE TOOL ........................................................................................................................................... 33
6.1 EXPLORING THE WIDER ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF A MAJOR RAIL INVESTMENT.......................................................................................... 33
6.1.1
Norrbotniabanan ................................................................................................................................................................................33
6.1.2
Seinäjoki–Oulu .....................................................................................................................................................................................36
6.2 EXPLORING THE REGIONAL DIFFERENCES OF WIDER ECONOMIC IMPACTS ............................................................................................... 40
6.2.1
Comparing similar investments in different national areas of Sweden ........................................................................40
6.2.2
Comparing similar investments in different national areas of Finland ........................................................................41
6.3 EXPLORING THE BASE SCENARIO FOR REGIONAL PROJECTIONS ................................................................................................................. 43
6.3.1
Sweden ....................................................................................................................................................................................................43
6.3.2
Finland ....................................................................................................................................................................................................44
7
FINAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................. 46
8
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................................................. 48
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
5
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
1
INTRODUCTION
This study focuses on the economic development impacts of infrastructure investments in the context of Bothnian Green Logistic Corridor. The main focus is on the development of rail transport. The development of both
efficient and environmentally friendly transport solutions is important for the following reasons:



More capacity is needed to respond to the expected increase of freight transports during the next decades
The competitiveness of the central and northern regions of Scandinavia requires efficient transport
connections to the European and global markets, which in turn need the availability of the natural resources and products of the Northern regions
The economic growth must be environmentally sustainable, too.
The role of public authorities in this context is to ensure sufficient operating environment for the private firms
to engage in profitable business. Transport infrastructure is an integral part of the economic process. The local
and national authorities and governments have the power to decide, how to develop (or not to develop) the
transport infrastructure in the Bothnian Corridor. The decisions they make will have impacts on the economy.
Therefore it is important, that the decision-making is provided with sufficient and reliable information about the
economic impacts.
The two main tasks of this study have been (1) a literature review of the wider economic impacts of transport
investments and (2) development of an evaluation tool to quantify those impacts. The previously set context for
the study has been the development of the railway infrastructure within the Bothnian corridor.
The literature review was carried out on the wider economic impacts of transport investments (Chapters 2 and
3), and the methodologies to assess those impacts (Chapter 4). Both qualitative and quantitative approaches
were concerned, as well as existing tools and models. The review builds an understanding of the wide range of
wider economic impacts that can follow transport improvements, and the potential methods for quantifying
these. Finally, the review compares the computable general equilibrium (CGE) models with other methods in the
estimation of the wider economic impacts.
An assessment tool was developed in the Microsoft Excel environment to calculate and present the wider economic impacts of rail infrastructure investments within the spatial scope of Finland and Sweden (Chapter 5).
The core of the evaluation tool has been built by using RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn CGE-models to compute several investment and impact scenarios of two actual investment projects, Seinäjoki–Oulu in Finland and Norrbotniabanan in Sweden. These two projects were used also in the demonstration of the tool (Chapter 6).
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
6
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS – AN OVERVIEW
2
2.1
Economic impacts in transport decision making
Transport connects people, businesses and resources. The demand for transport is derived demand reflecting
the economic activities of firms, households and individuals. Changes in the transport system, in turn, have impacts on the economic development, that can be defined by society’s strategic economic goals and objectives
(Littman 2010) concerning e.g. income, employment, competitiveness, business activity, property values, affordability, tax revenues, equity. These objectives have local, regional and national dimensions.
Investment decisions are key decisions in every long term development strategy. The main underlying reason to
use economic resources now is to gain economic benefits in the future. Decisions concerning transport infrastructure are made by public agencies and governments, and are expected to support the public good. Therefore,
project appraisal is used to investigate and reason the consequences of the decisions to assist the decisionmakers to reach informed and rational choices.
Generally speaking, transport investments generate two categories of benefits (Berechman 2009): Direct, primary benefits within the transport system and secondary, externality benefits in the other sectors of society and
the economy. The primary impacts of transport investments concern accessibility, traffic safety and transport
related costs both internal and external. Environmental and other restrictions and impacts are taken into account and may in some cases be of great importance and interest. However, the main motivation for transport
investments comes down to economic goals and objectives.
Transport authorities in most countries have a long tradition of using the principles of practical cost benefit
analysis (CBA) in transport project appraisal. The theoretical framework for such an analysis is broad, and
therefore there are International (e.g. World Bank), European (EU) and nationally harmonised guidelines for
transport project assessment. The CBA provides the decision-making with tools to analyse the primary impacts
of transport project proposals.
There is an increasing awareness within the transport sector, that decisions concerning transport system development are associated with scale effects and externalities that produce more than just travel costs savings.
There can be wider economic effects following the investment money spent on the region and the transport cost
reductions. These benefits may include, for example, employment generation, increased productivity and availability of labour, changes in land and property values. The concern in this respect is that without due recognition of the broader impacts in the transport decision-making framework, the decisions may lead to undesired
allocation of investment funds.
Since transport investments affect economic growth and welfare, it is of importance in the decision-making to
get a wide view of the economic impacts. Direct, indirect and induced effects together provide the total economic impact of transport investments.
2.2
The direct economic impacts of transport investments
The direct economic impacts of a transport investment include investment and maintenance costs, operating
costs of transport operators and the time costs for business travel and freight. Further, the costs of traffic accidents and pollution include potentially relevant cost items.
The principal economic impact of a transport improvement is the time savings to freight drivers and business
travellers. The value placed on travel time savings is the opportunity cost of the lost time that is often measured
as gross hourly labour cost (as is in Finland and in Sweden). Time savings in business travel have direct implications on the productivity of the employees. It should be noted, however, that there are possibilities to use the
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
7
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
travel time productively. This phenomenon may be tackled by using different values of time for different modes
of transport and different trip purposes.
For freight movements there can be additional gains from reducing the time goods are held up in transport. In
particular for higher-value goods, time savings could mean economic efficiency gains. Improved reliability of
transport, on the other hand, may lead to tighter scheduling and thus improved productivity. (Kernohan and
Rognlien 2011.)
From the transport operator point of view, there are usually direct economic impacts concerning fuel or electricity consumption, vehicle rotation (vehicle hours or vehicle days) and working time of drivers and other personnel. These impacts affect the productivity and quality of service of transport operators.
In addition, traffic accidents have four kinds of economic impacts: costs of medical treatment, loss of production
and consumption, material costs and administrative costs.
2.3
Types and mechanisms of economic development impacts
The economic impacts of transport investments are commonly divided into short- and long-run economic development effects. The effects in the short-run or in the long-run are associated with investment multiplier effects and regional economic growth effects, respectively (Berechman 2009):


Short-run multiplier effects: The value of economic activity following the money spent on construction and
purchases during the investment period. The multiplier effects of large investments are generally quite high
in terms of changes of personal income, jobs and gross regional product. Thus, these impacts are of interest
especially among local decision-making.
Long-run effects on regional economic development: The changes in the economic development following the
primary transport effects (time and cost changes). The development effects are structural changes in the
impacted markets that materialise in a long period of time. The value of economic development impacts is
quite low compared with the short run multiplier impacts. It is also a challenge to separate the impact of a
particular transport investment from all other land-use, economic, demographic and other transport system
developments taking place in the region during the following decades.
Economic development impact types can generally be categorized as follows:


Impacts relating to overall area economy; economic output, gross regional product, value added, personal
income, employment
Impacts relating to specific economic development such as productivity, capital investment, property appreciation and fiscal impacts including both public revenues and expenditure
The development impacts may occur as a direct consequence of the investment. The most interesting impacts,
however, are the indirect, induced and dynamic development impacts:




Direct mechanism: The most significant impact is the reduction of transport costs. Businesses of the region
are offered improved accessibility to markets and resources (labour, materials and equipment) and, the
benefits of reduced costs of transport and thus enhanced productivity. Direct impacts of construction on
wealth and job creation.
Indirect mechanism: “Secondary” entities such as local businesses supplying inputs to directly affected businesses.
Induced mechanism: Increased income leads to increased spending and thus to increased demand.
Dynamic mechanism: Long-term changes in economic development; business location patterns, work force,
labour costs, prices, land-use changes, that in turn affect the wealth in the region.
Figure 1 below summarises the causalities of the economic impacts of a transport investment.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
8
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Figure 1.
2.4
Types and mechanisms of economic development impacts (figure based on an original by Sinha &
Labi 2007)
Are wider economic impacts additional to direct transport benefits?
Many of the development impacts of an infrastructure investment are in fact capitalised direct impacts. Therefore, it is a widely applied rule that the wider economic impacts of an investment project are not to be added to
the direct (transport economic) benefits. The estimates of the wider economic impacts will, however, be of great
interest in the decision-making process.
There may also be external economic impacts to transport cost reductions. Kernohan and Rognlien (2011) implicates that an infrastructure investment can produce benefits through the following mechanisms of effects that
are additional to the standard approach of evaluation:


Agglomeration impacts: Improved accessibility and the decrease of transport costs may lead to firms to
relocate closer to their intermediate suppliers to enjoy lower upstream (buying) and downstream
(supplying) costs. The outcome of this process is intensified regional industrial clustering i.e. agglomeration. This may also facilitate specialisation of economic activities enabling increased efficiency from
economies of scale. Further, the improved accessibility increases interaction between economic actors
and better transfer of knowledge (=> productivity). The increased agglomeration – as well as the induced impacts – has effects on the prices in the region involved.
Imperfect market impacts: CBA measures the value of time saving as a saving in gross labour cost assuming perfect competition. There are, however, price-cost margins caused by e.g. taxation and imperfect competition. The improved accessibility and trade between spatial markets. If there are persistent
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
9
The wider economic impacts of transport investments

externalities in other markets that are affected by a transport scheme, a reduction or increase in output
can diminish or augment the cost of these externalities.
Labour supply and job relocation impacts: The improved accessibility affects labour markets in two ways.
The higher commuting speed increases the labour accessibility from current locations, and attracts
more jobs to locate in the region (to benefit from the agglomeration).
According to Graham (2012), there is a strong theoretical case for extending conventional transport appraisal to
cover wider economic impacts. Agglomeration economies form the largest component of these wider impacts,
and there are differences between different kinds of transport projects in different regions. Therefore, the expansion of the transport project assessment to cover also the wider economic impacts in of significance in the
decision-making. Agglomeration impacts can arise from small scheme as well as large schemes, and across different modes of investment. Further, the agglomeration benefits do not only arise in urbanised areas but any location may benefit from improvements in accessibility.
2.5
The spatial scope
According to U.S. Department of Transportation (2006), there are three categories of economic impacts that
should be taken into account while assessing economic benefits and costs of any infrastructure investments:



Evaluation of national level first-order and second-order infrastructure efficiency benefits (e.g., reduced
costs to goods transport operators and customers, relocation of logistic activities)
Evaluation of national-level economic growth or productivity (e.g., GDP, exports)
Evaluations of local and regional economic impacts for local and regional funding decisions (e.g., employment, Gross Regional Product, household income).
The spatial scope is of great relevance in the assessment of economic impacts. At a national level, the changes in
the economy will probably be seen as “internal redistributions”. At a regional level the changes may be perceived as “new activities”. The best level to capture impacts on economic development is the regional one. The
size, structure and maturity of the economies and the transport system may vary greatly between the regions.
The size and nature of the economic impacts varies, too. At a local level the spill over effects might be negative
for some municipalities (for example an exit of a logistic centre due to the increased accessibility). On the other
hand, there are municipalities that will win and receive new business via the agglomeration effects.
Berechman (2009) points out that the economic development consequences in a region are further affected by
spatial policies, too. The predicted economic development benefits of an investment may not fully transpire, if
they are not accompanied by supporting land-use, housing and industrial policies.
Figure 2.
The role of supporting policies and decision-making in the causality of economic impacts.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
10
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
3
THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS
3.1
Impacts on economic growth and employment
In addition to the direct and indirect effects of a transport investment and the operation of the improved system,
the changes in transport environment may cause changes in the regional economic structures and shifts of economic activities between regions in the long run.
The economic impacts of a transport investment are to a large extent based on the effects the investment has on
accessibility. Faster train connections and increased supply and quality of transport services lower the costs of
personal mobility and goods transport. This makes the trade of goods and services more profitable and the
communication and interaction between people easier. Improved accessibility makes it possible for enterprises
to enhance their geographical market areas (if the size of the market area depends on accessibility). This may
increase competition in some locations but at the same time it makes it possible to deeper specialization which
increases productivity. Accessibility improvements may also make the labour market areas larger because job
centres can be reached from longer distances within reasonable time. This tends to increase commuting and it
causes an improvement in the balance of labour demand and supply. The more polarised and specialised are the
labour markets the more beneficial it is to enhance the labour market areas.
The connection between accessibility and the regional economy is described in Figure 3.
Figure 3. The process of impacts of accessibility improvements in a labour market area.
As long as business transport is a factor in the production function of the firm faster and better quality business
mobility (meetings etc.) has a direct effect on the cost and productivity of firms. Especially communication intensive firms, typically business services, can get competitiveness advantage and can enhance their business to
neighbour regions. This supports the growth potential of firms in the region and may attract new firms to the
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
11
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
region. This may have an impact on the demand for labour in the growing region and at the same time the supply of labour may increase due to the enhancement of the labour market area. Improvement of accessibility affects also the availability of various services and leisure mobility. Finally, the increase of the overall attractiveness of the region may lead to increases in-migration and population growth.
As a whole, the improvement of accessibility may lead to growth by two different processes: widening of the
functional labour market area and inward growth via jobs and population. However, the growth may take place,
at least partly, at the cost of the firms in other regions.
3.2
Impacts on agglomeration, competition and labour supply
Significant improvements in accessibility may cause a strong growth impulse for a region. This is especially possible if new connections are created or two or more transport modes are developed simultaneously (e.g. fast
railway and highway) for a region with growth potential but previously underdeveloped transport system
(World Bank 2009). In this case the accessibility improvements function as a catalyst for growth but in the long
run the larger size makes it possible for the region to create agglomeration benefits for firms and households
which may lead to further growth.
Agglomeration benefits refer to positive externalities by which economic actors (firms and households) benefit
from the closeness of other economic actors and of the increasing number of them and output growth created by
them. Agglomeration benefits can be divided to localization benefits and urbanization benefits (e.g. Laakso &
Loikkanen 2004).
Localization benefits are based on the big size of a certain sector in the region. This makes it possible to exploit
scale benefits in the input markets and logistics and supports the creation and distribution of innovations within
the region. Urbanization benefits are based on the large size and diversification of the whole urban region. For
firms urbanization means more competition, wider goods variation, better possibilities for specialization and
cooperation. For households urbanization means a wider range of consumption possibilities. For labor markets
large size of the urban region means better match of the demand for and supply of work. An important factor is
the possibility to spreading of knowledge, innovations and technologies between the sectors.
There is a lot of research evidence about the benefits to firms of the location near other firms of same industries
or other industries. Agglomeration benefits the economic and social interaction between firms and their employees. This increases the probability of innovations and flow of knowledge between firms. In addition growing
urban areas provide urbanization benefits, like the benefits of the large market area, well working labour markets and benefits from the diversification of industries. At the same time, agglomeration can increase price level
and congestion (Laakso & Loikkanen 2004; Laakso & Moilanen 2011).
Industries differ from each other with respect to the significance of the various dimensions of accessibility and
the sensitivity to the changes in accessibility. According to Graham (2007; 2012) the productivity of firms increase with respect to the accessibility to a major economic centre but the elasticity varies between industries.
The elasticity is higher in services than in manufacturing or construction. The highest effect 1 is in business services, finance, telecommunication and transport while in retail trade and accommodation and catering it is lower but still higher than in manufacturing.
This explains to the large extent the fact that in Finland more than three quarters of the jobs of business services,
finance and telecommunication are located in the 10 largest urban areas with the biggest local market for their
services and best accessibility to other concentrations. (Laakso & Moilanen 2011)
According to estimation results from UK the elasticity is 0,2–0,25 in most accessibility sensitive industries while
it is below 0,1 in manufacturing and construction.
1
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
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The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Figure 3 shows that the intensity of business communication between enterprises in different regions depends
both on the characteristics of the transport system and on the industry structure and specialization. The density
and efficiency of the transport system determines the accessibility of other regions. On the other hand, the industrial specialization based on competitiveness benefits of regions influence the potential of business communication between firms from different regions. In general, good accessibility of a region tends to attract firms
with large market areas and much need for business communication in a large geographical area.
Figure 4.
The process of market area enhancement of firms
Empirical studies from Jönköping region (Andersson et al 2005) are based on the framework of the impact of
accessibility on the business contacts and enhancement of market areas. According to their estimation results
the intensity of business trips increases extremely fast between the transport distances from 60 min (1h) to 180
min (3h). This means that the fastening of transport connection especially within this time frame increases significantly business communication based on face to face contacts.
The SAMLOK model (Anderstig et al 2007) is based on the hypothesis that an improvement in the accessibility
affects the labour market from two directions. First, the number of potential workers for which job concentrations are reasonably well accessible increases. Second, the number of potential jobs which are reasonably well
accessible from housing locations of the residents who are active in labour market increases. In addition, there
are other influencing factors, like the supply of housing and characteristics of residential areas and supply of
jobs and the characteristics of job areas which influence the realization of the functional labour market area.
The key concepts of the model are “market potential for jobs” and “market potential for labour”. The estimation
results of Anderstig et al indicate that both aspects of market potential are deeply interlinked. According to the
results based on regional panel data show that more than half of labour (population) change can be explained by
the change of the market potential for jobs.
3.3
Impacts on land use and property values
In urban areas transport investment may affect the land use and property values in the long run. The potential
for the change concentrates first of all in the vicinity of new or improved transport links, like railway stations
(railway investments), road junctions (road investments) and airports (airport investments) but the effects may
also influence a wider area or the whole urban region if the investments acts as a catalyst for a process based on
agglomeration effects. In the following we concentrate on the potential land use effects of railway investments
improving person transport.
The accessibility improvements caused by rail investments make the locations near the old or new railway stations more attractive for firms and households. Firms benefit from improved access by rail especially to other
regions but also within the same region. This makes the business to business contacts easier improving the
communication accessibility for firms. This is most important for communication intensive firms, like business
services. It also improves the possibility for firms to get labor due to faster and better quality commuting from a
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larger area. The increased passenger flows in the surroundings of the stations make the location more attractive
for retail trade and other services for households. The improved transport accessibility and changing locations
of jobs and services may also make the locations more attractive for housing.
These improvements of accessibility influence the rent level firms are ready to pay in the vicinity of improved
accessibility. This leads to the increase of the rents and prices of old and new business premises. This is further
capitalized in the land value of the area. These price changes create also pressure for the change of land use in
two ways. First, the increased land value leads to demand for increasing density in the area. Second, the industrial structure in the area tends to change. The old activities, like manufacturing and storage, tend to move to
new locations while they are replaced by the industries benefiting from improved accessibility, like business
services, retail trade and other household services.
The increased level of land value and the changed land value distribution creates pressure for planning. The requirement for higher land efficiency (higher buildings and less vacant space) increases. In addition, the area
where construction is profitable becomes larger. However, planning rules restrict the realization of the land use
changes. There may be political reasons to restrict the construction efficiency and the access of new land use in
the area. Old buildings may be protected. The citizen or business community may oppose the land use changes.
The land ownership may restrict or postpone the changes. These restrictions may lead to the realization of the
second or third best alternatives compared with the market based land use. It must be pointed out that land use
changes as a consequence of a transport investment typically take years, often tens of years.
Are the land value changes caused by transport investments a zero sum game at regional level? The long run
land use changes as a consequence of a transport investment are at least partly realized at the cost of other locations in the region. When the demand for land use in one location increases it normally decreases, at least marginally, in other locations, respectively. However, it is not a zero sum game if the land use of the region becomes
more effective increasing the productivity of firms benefitting the land use changes. Increasing productivity
raises also the capability of firms to pay rent and consequently, the total land value of the whole urban area increases as a consequence of taking advantage of the improved accessibility and increased efficiency of land use.
3.4
Potential for wider development of land use
Bannister & Berechman (2000) point out that in developed countries where the quality of the transport infrastructure is basically already at a good level further investment in infrastructure will not on its own result in
economic growth. Instead, transport infrastructure investments act as a complement to other underlying conditions which must also be met if further economic development is to take place.
According to B&B there are three sets of necessary conditions:
1.
Economic conditions: There must be possibility for positive economic externalities, such as agglomeration and labor market economies, the availability of a good quality labor force and underlying dynamics
in the local economy.
2.
Investment conditions that relate to the availability of funds for the investment, the scale of the investment and its location, the network effects and the actual timing of the investment.
3.
Political and institutional conditions that are related to the broader policy environment within which
transport decisions must be taken. To achieve economic development, complementary decisions and a
facilitating environment must be in place; otherwise the impacts may be counterproductive. Included in
this group of factors are the sources and methods of finance, the level of investment at different regional
levels, the supporting legal, organizational and institutional policies and processes and various necessary complementary policy actions.
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It must be noted that individually, the necessary conditions will have little or no impact on development. Even if
two of the three conditions are met the effect will be limited. For example, if both the investment condition and
political conditions are satisfied accessibility changes can be expected but economic growth impact will be limited because of lacking economic conditions. In this case relative attractiveness of locations affected may change
but this is merely redistribution of existing activities rather than additional growth.
Similarily, if only the investment and economic conditions are met, economic development effects may not follow because of the lack of supporting policies. A typical example is the land use policy that prevents firms and
households from benefitting from the accessibility improvements by restricting the adaption of land use to
changed conditions and maintaining the past land use. Another example is conflicting transport policies, e.g.
separate and competing rail and road investments not supporting to each other.
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4
TOOLS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT
4.1
Transport project assessment (cost benefit analysis CBA)
Cost benefit analysis (CBA) is generally used by governments and private sector to evaluate the desirability of a
given policy. It is an analysis of the expected benefits and costs that aims to provide a basis for comparing alternatives within a given project, and for comparing different projects. CBA determines, whether an investment or
decision is feasible. Theoretically, an accurate CBA identifies choices that increase welfare from a utilitarian perspective. The quality of the CBA depends heavily, among other things, on the valuation of present and future
costs and benefits, on the definition of the reference alternative and, on the quality of relevant forecasts.
Transport project assessment is the main instrument used in the planning and decision-making of transport investments. It follows the principles of practical cost benefit analysis. Project assessment includes an analytic estimation of the costs and benefits of a given project in monetary terms. The underlying idea is socio-economic
efficiency – that is efficient allocation of scarce resources with the aim of maximising the welfare of society as a
whole. The form and various details of project appraisal methodology vary from one country to another. There
is no universal agreement on the extent to which costs and benefits should be disaggregated, which impacts
should be included in the analysis and how they should be monetarily quantified.
Both Finland and Sweden have used CBA-based project assessment in the transport sector for decades (see e.g.
Eliasson 2013). All major national transport investments in both countries have been evaluated using a harmonised assessment framework. One of the main purposes of the harmonised guidelines is to make sure that
transport investment suggestions from different parts of the countries concerning different modes of transport
are comparable to a reasonable degree. Most or all major transport investments in Finland and in Sweden are
financed through the State budget with no or relatively little regional funding. The methodological details within
the framework (discount rate, unit values, calculation period, transport modelling, etc.) have been under continuous development. There are several differences between the project assessment methodologies in Finland
and in Sweden. 2
The standard transport project assessment (or CBA) includes the estimates, valuation and analysis of the following components:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Investment costs and maintenance costs of the transport authority
Generalised user costs (time, operating costs, convenience, etc.) in private travel, business travel and
freight transport
Traffic safety (the number and costs of fatalities, injuries and material damages)
Producer surplus for transport operators
Transport-related tax revenues (fuel tax, congestion tax, vat of tickets)
Emissions (the amount and costs of CO2, NOx, SO2, particles)
Noise (the magnitude and costs of noise exposure).
There are several generally recognised weaknesses in transport Cost benefit analysis, namely (OECD 2002):
–
–
–
It favours some groups of users (bias resulting from CBA’s reliance on willingness-to-pay as a measure
of opportunity costs)
It fails to incorporate all of the external effects of projects (e.g. environmental impacts, social effects and
wider economic effects)
It fails to deal with distributional effects (e.g. impacts on deprived areas).
The differences relevant in the context of wider economic benefits are in focus in Chapters 5.2 and 6.1 of this
report.
2
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There are two ways to respond to these weaknesses. The first is to expand the monetary valuation of impacts to
incorporate more non-monetised impacts into the CBA methodology. The second is to incorporate the CBA analysis and results into a wider appraisal framework. These two approaches are complementary to each other. In
Finland and in Sweden, transport project assessment includes also qualitative or sometimes quantitative estimation and analysis of a number of non-monetised impacts.
The standard transport project assessment is needed to estimate and value the direct economic impacts of any
transport investment. This knowledge may not be sufficient enough for the decision-making, as already discussed earlier in this report, but it is necessary for the estimation of the wider economic impacts.
4.2
Surveys, interviews and market studies
4.2.1
Interviews and surveys
Interviews and surveys can give both qualitative and quantitative information about the expected economic development impacts of an investment. One method is to conduct interviews with local businesses and officials focusing on their views and plans regarding the transport investment in question. Survey-type methods used for
economic impact analysis include (Sinha and Labi 2007):




Expert interviews: Interviews of persons who have accumulated information and experience in business conditions in the region. Leaders and planners of local governments and researchers in the local
universities, for example, may be useful contacts in this context.
Business surveys: Surveying local business leaders, representatives of business organisations, for example, to collect data concerning the potential short-term effects of the proposed investment. Questionnaires may be delivered by Internet, by post or by interviews conducted in person or by telephone.
Shopper origin-destination surveys: Surveying shoppers in the local communities to collect data of how
the shopping and trip-making patterns could be affected by changes following the proposed investment.
Corridor inventory methods: Surveying the users of a particular transport corridor by windshield surveys, vehicle origin-destination logs and business activity data collection.
Case Järvenpää–Lahti motorway and Kerava–Lahti direct rail line in Finland
The Järvenpää–Lahti motorway was opened to traffic in two phases during the years 1998-99. The Kerava–Lahti
direct rail line was completed in the year 2006. Information on the traffic and socioeconomic impacts along this
transport corridor was compiled and analysed by Meriläinen et. al. (2011). Statistical data and information from
separate studies were completed by a questionnaire study for rail passengers and road users as well as by interviews in Lahti and Mäntsälä.
According to the study, freight transport volumes on the new railway-line have been lower than expected. About
half of rail passengers and one-fifth of road users indicated that the direct rail line increased their train travel.
Regarding travellers between the Helsinki and Lahti regions, a share of almost 30 % of rail passengers indicated
that the direct rail line affected their choice of residence or job location. Positive net migration from the Helsinki
Metropolitan Area to Mäntsälä and also to the Lahti urban region has further accelerated after the completion of
the direct rail line. New residential areas have been constructed in the vicinity of stations. Lahti station area has
also developed into a specialised business district due to faster railway connections.
Business development that requires cargo transport has totally relied on motorway connections. New competing
business and logistics areas have emerged and existing areas have strengthened their position in interchange
areas, although this development has not been very strong. Missing sidings to industrial areas prevent the development railway freight transport operations.
New transport infrastructure has increased municipal expenses due to new construction, population growth and business development. Tax revenues will also increase, but surplus in municipal economy can only happen in the longer
run. It is, however, difficult to separate the impacts of transport infrastructure development from the impacts of, for
example, economic trends and steering mechanisms of municipal economy.
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4.2.2
Market studies
Market studies are smaller-scale analyses typically related to impacts to local business within a region, not
across regions. Market studies can help estimate the existing levels of supply and demand for the main business
activities within the study area and then to estimate the expected changes with improved accessibility and reduced transport costs.
Market studies may use various kinds of tools to collect and analyse information about the local economy. Interviews and surveys (see chapter 4.2.1) are useful. Gravity models are also used to predict effects on business activities. Gravity models are based on the assumption that changes in business activities are proportional to
changes in accessibility (Sinha and Labi 2007):
∑
where Ai is the accessibility of location i, Dj is the number of business opportunities of a particular type at location j, tij is the generalised cost of travel from i to j and α is a calibrating factor that is typically between 1,5 and
2,0.
4.3
Comparative analysis – Case studies
Comparative analysis or case studies are based on the assumption that impacts of a particular transport investment are to a large extent similar to the impacts of a same kind of investment in the past. This approach is applicable if the study area is relatively small and comparable case studies are available. Case studies are particularly
useful in public communications and hearings to facilitate common understanding of the possible economic effects with concrete examples instead of complex economic analyses. The selection of the appropriate case studies, however, can be subjective and the argumentation for the project in question may be intentionally directed
to a desired direction. (Sinha and Labi 2007.)
A meta-analysis of a large number of case studies, on the other hand, can be very fruitful in drawing an overall
view of the wider economic impacts. The key findings of the case of T-Pics (see case below) are in line with the
generalised descriptions of the wider economic impacts presented in chapters 2 and 3 of this report.
Case Transportation Project Impact Case Studies (T-PICS), USA
T-PICS (2013) is a web-based viewing and analysis system for the case studies of wider economic impacts of
road investments in the USA. The project was carried out under the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) of Transportation research board of the National academies. The economic impacts were studied by producing 100 before and after case studies of the impacts on economic and land development of highway and highway/intermodal infrastructure projects. A national database of case studies was created, and a
web tool for viewing and using the findings.
The case studies included statistical analysis of empirical data and identification of common themes from the
qualitative interview reports. Key findings of the case studies were (TRB 2012):
a) Transport infrastructure projects lead to multifaceted forms of economic development impact, which may
include effects on employment, income, land use, property values, or building construction.
b) The form of impact varies by the type and setting of the project.
c) Impacts unfold over time, so no single project will necessarily show every type of impact at the same time.
For that reason, multiple impact measures and an appropriate period of observation are needed to fully
capture economic development impacts.
d) Overall, 85% of the projects show evidence of positive economic impacts, while the rest show either no
net impact or a small negative impact. However, the impacts were measured at different spatial scales depending on the size and breadth of the project, which varied from 2-mile, short-access roads to major in-
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The wider economic impacts of transport investments
e)
f)
g)
h)
4.4
terstate highways spanning several hundred miles.
Project cost and job growth impacts vary by project size, type, and location.
Project location matters. Larger numbers of jobs are generated by projects in metropolitan settings than
by those in rural settings. Rural projects tend to have lower costs and take less time to build than those in
metropolitan settings, although job growth in rural areas also tends to take longer to emerge than in metropolitan areas.
The economy and business climate of the project area are critical factors affecting the magnitude of project impacts. Projects in economically vibrant areas with complementary infrastructure and zoning regulations tend to generate more long-term jobs than do projects in areas without those features.
Motivations for projects differ, and projects with a coordinated economic development effort (involving
complementary policies) generally facilitate more long-term job growth than do projects that lack local
supporting policies.
Land-use–transport interaction simulation models
Several simulation-based models have been developed and used to predict how the markets respond to changes
in land-use and transport accessibility. These so called LUTI-models are a type of microeconomic simulation
models that treat in detail the factors affecting the location decisions of firms and households. The models include explicit modelling of both transport and land-use. The basic interactions of the LUTI-modelling is as follows: Changing transport time or costs changes the accessibility to jobs, workers, and location of consumption,
which in turn will over time affect the location of firms and households. The changes of land use patterns will
have feedbacks on transport costs which in turn will affect location decisions. (Sinha and Labi 2007, Kernohan
and Rognlien 2011.)
LUTI-models typically take the region’s economic and demographic projections as fixed input and predict the
redistribution of these following a transport investment. The LUTI-models are thus appropriate for understanding the dynamics of urban or regional economic impacts but do not take into account the impacts on economic
growth.
Economic multiplier – Input –output (IO) models
4.5
Input-Output models trace the flow of industries’ income and calculate how changes in one industry affect
growth in the rest of the economy (Guide, 2006). According to Wallis (2009) correctly defined, IO models evaluate the wider economic effects as follow:


Indirect production effects: re-spending by firms that receive income from the sale of commodities to
firms undertaking the direct activities;
Induced consumption effects: resulting from re-spending by households receiving income from employment in direct and indirect activities.
The main outputs of analyses using IO models are changes in GDP/GSP (Gross Domestic Product and Gross State
Product), employment and income. The results of IO models are typically reported for given years in the project
construction period and the project operational period and can be of regional, multiregional, or national scope.
IO results can be seen as short-run effects, because only the output effects are denoted. In the longer run also the
price effect must be accounted for.
While IO models have rather limited use for transportation impact analysis, these models are widely used to
present the labour and income impacts of operating or expanding infrastructure investments. However, estimation of the impact of changes in costs or market access, which are the two key impacts of most of the infrastructure investments, cannot be obtained via IO models. The IO model is often chosen by policy makers due to its rather simple structure, comparing to other methods, and to its sometimes mandatory status.
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4.6
An overview of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models
Computable General Equilibrium models are used in Europe and the world as models of the economy for large
regions and nations. CGE models usually have a spatial component, tracking transportation connections and
trade among regions, and an industry component, tracking the cost of freight transportation by commodity
group between regions. The models estimate the economic impact of infrastructure projects and policies by calculating their impact on interregional infrastructure cost, value of capital stock, effective labour supply, and
overall factor productivity. This may include effects of changing travel times, reliability, accident rates, congestion levels, and operating costs. In the end, the macroeconomic response is estimated as changes in industry
growth and related to it changes in commodity trade between regions (NCFRP, 2011).
Using CGE models is one method of dealing with the limitations of the IO models. CGE models represent a microand macro-economic approach to analysing transport infrastructure. They often use intermediate demand and
other data from the I-O tables. The main data source for the Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) is national and
regional economic accounts. CGE models use econometric estimates for the parameters and elasticity values.
CGE models allow for the resource constraints on availability of labour, capital and land. Also the structures for
private consumption and government spending can be added to the model. In fact, the CGE models include not
only the influence of the changes in the output, but also the price impacts coming from changes in relative prices.
The models can thus be used in both short and long run scenarios. For these reasons, CGE models deal better
with economic interactions and represent more sophisticated modelling approach than IO models.
CGE models use wide quantitative information relating to labour market data, detailed commodity flows, and
national and regional accounts data. The economy is presented as a system of flows of goods and services between sectors, including produced commodities and primary factor services (labour, capital, land). Typically, the
decision makers include the household, several industry sectors, government and the foreign sector. It is the
ability to incorporate constraints (i.e. behavioural assumptions) into modelling that favour CGE models among
the other assessment methods. The behavioural assumptions indicate how linked sectors respond to given
shocks (changes in the economic environment) and how these shocks are transferred to other sectors. CGE
models make particular assumptions of the behaviour of consumers, producers and investors using established
micro- and macro-economic theories, well tested methods of econometrics and reliable algorithms from applied
mathematics.
Similarly to IO models, results for CGE models are usually reported for given years in the project construction
and operational period (Wallis, 2009). The impacts of infrastructure investments measured by CGE models include usually the effects on GDP/GSP, employment, investments, trade (imports and exports), consumption,
wages and taxes, which makes CGE models particularly attractive for decision makers. According to Sue Wing et
al. (2007) recent applications of CGE have made advances by presenting travel time as a negative impact on the
utility and production functions of households and firms, and treating transport supply and demand interactively within the models. As is the case of all evaluation methods, CGE has its drawbacks that are presented in Table
1.
Among CGE models one can distinguish comparative-static, dynamic and spatial models; all three are possible to
apply for infrastructure investment assessment, but are not equally adequate for it.
Comparative-static CGE model is the most commonly used CGE model worldwide. It does not have a time dimension and it omits inter-temporal relationships between endogenous variables. It is often criticised for its incapability of analysing the impacts of transport investments that have a ‘long tail’ with respect to construction expenditures and flow-on impacts within the local area. The infrastructure investment will therefore affect local
and global economies for many years, as local development gradually takes advantage of the new infrastructure
facilities (Docwra & West, 1999).
Dynamic CGE model in a contrast, explicitly trace each variable through time. For example, a dynamic CGE model
can link changes in the capital stock in one period with past levels of investment and savings (using specified
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elasticity measures) where all of these are defined as endogenous variables (Docwra & West, 1999). Labour dynamics are often included, where the change of population due to the infrastructure investment is estimated.
Dynamic CGE model is said to be more realistic, but at the same time more difficult to construct and solve.
Spatial CGE model (SCGE) is either a comparative-static or a dynamic model of interregional trade and location
based in microeconomics, using utility and production functions with substitution between inputs. SCGE models
have a sophisticated theoretical foundation and non-linear, rather complex mathematics enabling to model
(dis)economies of scale, external economies of spatial clusters of activity (Ivanova et al., 2007). According to
Williams (et al., 2002) SCGE models can successfully represent the relationship between economic development
and transport demand. By taking into account both technological change and the recycling of revenues from infrastructure charging policies through the economy, SCGE models provide a constant framework for economic
responses.
Sundberg (2009) lists, as one of the reasons of increased used of SCGE, the increased demand for tools that may
assist in the assessment of policies, especially for the assessment of the economic impacts of infrastructure investments and other transport related policies. One example of SCGE model successfully used in infrastructure
investment assessment is CGEurope developed by Johannes Bröcker. Its main goal is to quantify regional welfare
effects of transport related and financial-economic policies (Tavasszy, 2007).
Table 1. Comparison of IO and CGE models (partially based on MOTOS 2007 and Wallis 2009)
Model
IO
Major output
Advantages
Disadvantages/Limits
I-O vs. CGE
 Range of macroeconomic variables;
employment, income and GDP/GSP
 Provides measure of
macro-economic impacts of interest to policy makers
 Fixed Price equilibrium
 Complexity: medium/large
 Simple technique for common decision maker
 May be more practical for
modelling small regions
than CGE
CGE
 Range of macroeconomic variables;
 relative prices,
employment, consumption, investment, taxes, exports and imports,
industry output
impacts and
GDP/GSP
 Provides measure of
macro-economic impacts of interest to policy makers
 Non-linear behaviour,
flexible structure
 Flexible description of
the supply and demand
side of the economy
 Linear Leontief structure
 High data requirements
 Tend to exaggerate economic
benefits
 Does not allow for constraints on
various factors, resulting in overestimate of impacts
 No allowance for environmental
and some accident externalities,
partial allowance for non-work
travel time
 Does not provide clear and direct
measure of net project benefits
(costs)
 Usually of comparative-static
character
 High data requirements
 Determination of parameter and
elasticity values
 Usually no allowance for environmental and some accident externalities, partial allowance for nonwork travel time
 Highly complex, expensive and
data required process
 Modelling approach is not transparent and open (black box)
 Questionable assumptions and
relationships may be hidden
 Complexity: Large
 IO can be used as a base for
CGE
 Allowance for constraints
provides more realistic
modelling of outputs than
IO and more comprehensive
approach to the estimation
of regional economic effects
 Unlike IO; specific assumptions about the behaviour of
consumers, producers and
investors
Selected CGE and other models dealing with the economic impacts of infrastructure investments from Finland,
Sweden, Norway, Poland and Germany are presented in an appendix of this report.
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4.7
The RegFinDyn model
Regional CGE RegFinDyn3 model is well designed for infrastructure impacts estimations and it has many advantages over the older, linear calculation methods such as IO.
RegFinDyn model includes and takes into account a large number of economic factors, among others:
















constraints on total availability of factors of production (labour, capital, land)
sectorial production and their demand for factors of production
dependencies of producer sectors in expenditures and sales
effects from differences in business structure between the regions
transport services presented as three sectors (Rail, Road, Other)
transport margins and productivity changes
substitution guided by relative prices between Rail and Road transportation
transportation infrastructure investments
operation phase of transportation infrastructure investments,
households’, businesses’ and public sector’s non-linear decision-making
investors’ cautious profit-seeking behaviour
time dimension
capital stock accumulation via net investments guided by the changes in the rate of return to capital
wage differences between the regions
regional population changes and demographics
money flows into-and out from the region through domestic and international trade.
RegFinDyn is a dynamic version of the comparative-static RegFin model; influenced by famous Australian
ORANI, MONASH, MMRF and TERM models (Wittwer 2012). The family of RegFin models has been developed
and used since 1998. The model is built on a neo-classical economic theory (Figure 2).
Figure 5.
RegFinDyn model’s theory
3
The basic CGE description is presented in publications Törmä (2008) and Rutherford and Törmä (2010). The detailed description of the model can be found in Törmä and Zawalinska (2010, 2011) and with emphasis on transport impact in
Metsäranta (et al., 2012). See also http://www.helsinki.fi/ruralia/research/regfin.htm
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In RegFinDyn, like in all CGE models, the key principle is that in the regional economy ‘everything affects everything’. For this reason, no part of the economy can be analysed separately.
Figure 6.
Interdependencies in the RegFinDyn model
Relative prices are the engines of economic adaptation. In the change of economic conditions, the relative prices
changes guide the economy towards new equilibrium. In RegFinDyn the relative prices and quantities can find
their correct new values only when all markets in the economy are in equilibrium, so supply is equal to demand.
In this case the whole economy is said to be in general equilibrium. In some model versions labour markets are
not in equilibrium due to existing unemployment.
RegFinDyn model takes into account all money flows into and out from the analysed region, so calculations are
done on a net basis.
Figure 7.
Money flows into and out from the region
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As for every dynamic model, the additional feature of RegFinDyn over the RegFin model is the time dimension.
Economic impacts are calculated year by year for a specific time period, for example years 2007-2020. Dynamic
calculations require setting up the baseline that is the image of the future without the considered changes. With
the calculation over the time, the model shows the dynamics through the interdependence between sectorial investments and capital stocks.
Another distinguish feature of RegFinDyn among other CGE models is the population module. The factors affecting the regional population in the model are birth and death rates and domestic and foreign net migration (inminus out- migration). The model produces the population structure by gender in 1-year-cohorts up to 100
years of age. The importance of the population module lies in its link to the labour force, citizens’ well-being as
well as the high interest of public sector in anticipating demographic changes causing changes in provision of
public services.
Agglomeration (see Chapter 3.2) is measured in RegFinDyn through each region’s share of national labour costs
compared to previous year. Thus, we use the share of regional labour cost as a simple proxy for effective density.
Regions increasing their share of labour use enjoy an additional increase in productivity. However, agglomeration impacts are assumed to vary by industry according to elasticity estimates reported by Kernohan and Rognlien (2011). The productivity gain from agglomeration is largest in knowledge-intensive services like financing
(elasticity 0,08–0,09) and smallest in primary production (elasticity 0,03–0,04). In transport-related services
the elasticity is 0,057.
Integrated CGE – transport models
4.8
Integrated models are the promising yet expensive and complicated methods of estimating economic impacts of
infrastructure investments. Linking economic modelling (CGE) with traditional transport modelling aims in exploration of the advantages of the two approaches. However, there are significant complications due to the
many inherent differences in the methodologies, but also the differences between ‘language’ of the engineers
and economists. CGE models operate on data from a normal of most recent year and on an aggregated scale,
while traditional transport models are based on cross-sectional analyses, often applying a detailed spatial resolution to precisely describe route choice. CGE models estimate monetary flows by economic sectors based on,
e.g., CPA classification, while transport models use commodity classification, both methods are difficult to combine. Integrated models are still rather scarce. Among few European cases are (See: MOTOS, 2007, Monzón et al.,
2010, Vold et al., 2002, 2007):


4.9
The national freight models in Norway: SCGE model of Norwegian economy (PINGO) and the network
model for freight transport within Norway and between Norway and other countries (NEMO);
TRANS-TOOLS: European transport network model including simplified CGEurope model.
Conclusions
The standard transport project assessment (CBA) is the basic tool to estimate the direct economic impacts of a
transport investment. This is necessary but not sufficient for the estimation of the wider economic impacts.
There is a growing need to know more about the wider economic impacts regarding individual infrastructure
projects and also more generally concerning transport policies. There are several analytical techniques for the
estimation of these economic development impacts, varying from simple case studies and surveys to complex
economic simulation modelling. However, a single analytical tool that is equally useful to all of the information
needs in the planning and decision making, is impossible to name. The general rule for the selection of the analytical tool is to match the tool to the purpose and level of desired sophistication of the analysis – and the given
resources (NCFRP 2011, Sinha and Labi 2007).
Considering a solid analysis of the wider economic development impacts, one can name the necessary core features of a capable assessment tool (US DoT 2006, Williams et. al. 2002, De Jong and Gunn 2004):
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
24
The wider economic impacts of transport investments




an analysis of how changes in transport related costs and access factors affect the growth/decline of
various productive activities within an economy
the indicators need to be structured and aggregated in a way that allow for reporting of the economic
impacts from different perspectives: by affected parties (e.g., households, private or public sector), by
geographic incidence (local, regional, national) or by economic sectors (e.g., transportation versus nontransportation sectors)
sufficient sectorial detail in the commodity types (from 15 to 100+) with an explicit representation of
the transport sector
fast and straightforward policy analysis tool and interlinked modules.
Focus on the quantitative assessment of wider economic effects narrows the choice to three most common
methods: Input-Output models (IO), Computable General Equilibrium models (CGE) and Integrated models
(transport models with CGE). Both IO and CGE models measure economic impacts rather than economic efficiency or net benefits, which are measured by CBA.
The RegFinDyn model can be considered a powerful tool to be used in the assessment of economic impacts of
infrastructure investments. For the purposes of the BGLC project, the authors of the RegFinDyn have built its
twin model called RegSweDyn for Sweden. RegSweDyn is based on the same modelling structure as its Finnish
equivalent. It is adjusted to the Swedish criteria and available data. Both models cover the Bothnian corridor by
calculating the impacts separately for each country, Finland and Sweden. The use of the actual RegFinDyn or
RegSweDyn-models is, however, not straightforward and fast but requires specific skills and knowledge. This
project aims to tackle the contradicting needs for a complex CGE-modelling and the fastness and straightforwardness of the analysis: A spreadsheet tool with a streamlined interface that uses the results of a large number
of previously made CGE-model simulations.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
25
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
5
A PLANNINGTOOL FOR ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT
5.1
Introduction to the methodology
The guidelines for the development and design of a planning tool to assess the wider economic impacts of infrastructure investments have been set as follows:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
The input parameters set by the user can be derived form a standard project assessment
Dynamic, multi-sector and inter-regional CGE simulation will be needed to determine the economic development impacts
The tool must be applicable to rail investments within the area of Bothnian corridor in Finland and
in Sweden
The tool must consider the development impacts from the construction spending and from the
benefits when in use
The results must focus on the key indicators of economic development considering the spatial distribution.
The development of the tool led to twin tools that were named WebRailFin and WebRailSwe – describing the
purpose of the tools to estimate the wider economic benefits of rail investments in Finland and Sweden, respectively. An overview of the tools is presented in Figure 5 and discussed below.
Figure 8.
An overview of the WebRailFin and WebRailSwe assessment tools.
The tools are made for a quantitative approximation of the wider economic impacts of large rail investments in
the national areas of Sweden or Finland. The wider economic impacts calculated by this tool are supplementary
to the results of a standard project assessment (CBA).
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
26
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
The tools use generalised results of RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn CGE-modelling. The Swedish tool covers 8 national areas (Nuts 2) and is based on a total of 64 scenarios of investment costs and 64 scenarios of benefits
(cost savings). The Finnish tool covers 4 national areas (Nuts 2) and is based on a total of 160 scenarios of investment cost simulations and 40 scenarios of benefits (cost savings).
The results of the CGE-modelling are stored in the planning tool to be used in the estimation of the wider economic impacts caused by the shocks of investment and cost savings of the investment project in question. The
regional economic effects of rail investments can then be evaluated for both the investment and operation period. Main interest is on the results related to economic growth and labour-markets.
5.2
5.2.1
Required background information and preparatory work
The basic calculation
The user must insert the relevant input parameters into the assessment tool. The necessary information can be
found in the project assessment (CBA) of the investment project in question. If the user wants to assess a project
that’s planning is on a very preliminary stage, the input parameters have to be defined based on user’s own expertise based on e.g. project assessments of previous projects.
The national area in focus
Choose the national area (Nuts 2) in focus. The tool calculates the results for only one area at one time.
The year of the price-level in the assessment
Insert the price-level used in the cost benefit analysis of the investment. The basic rule in CBA is that the investment cost and the monetised benefits are at the same price level.
The investment cost
Insert the investment cost used in the project assessment. The amount of actual spending during the construction will usually be more than this, but the important sum here is the difference between the investment and the
reference alternative (that is assumed to be part of the base scenario). Our tool assumes that the investment is
carried out in equal shares during the investment phase. Another assumption is that the state finances the investment by raising VAT during 20 years' time, and thereafter lowers VAT to its original level. This assumption
is made to avoid giving a too optimistic view on the infrastructure investments. Unfunded "helicopter money"
financing will always look beneficial to economy in this kind of models.
The first year of the construction work
Insert the year when the construction works of the project will start. In this version of the tool, the latest possible year to start the construction in the tool is 2020, so that the model has enough years in the base run for calculation of the impacts which accumulate during many years before reaching the maximum effect. However, if
the user is only interested in relative results (% change from the baseline), one can apply time frames that go
beyond year 2040, as then baseline values are not needed in the calculus of the absolute effects.
Length of the investment period
Insert the duration of the construction period in years. The maximum length of the construction period in this
version of the tool is 10 years.
The first year of user benefits
Insert the first full year of operation after the construction.
Direct economic impacts from the CBA per year
Insert the annual (per one year) benefits from as positive values (+) and disbenefits as negative values (-). The
annual value of economic benefits should be from first years of operation i.e. excluding the impact of traffic
growth.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
27
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Infrastructure maintenance cost savings
 Maintenance of railways: Directly from the project assessment.
 Maintenance of roads: Directly from the project assessment.
 Replacement investments in railways: Directly from the project assessment.
Benefits for the goods transport operators
 Operating cost savings and time-cost savings: Directly from the project assessment.
Benefits for the passenger transport operators
 Increase of ticket revenues: Directly from the project assessment.
 Operating cost savings: Directly from the project assessment.
User benefits
 Time savings for business trips: Only the share of business trips must be considered here
taken also into account the higher unit cost of time savings. One important point in costing
of the time savings is that they should be valued in terms of labour costs to employer, not
as net wages to employees.
External benefits
 Accident cost savings regarding the loss of production: The share of production loss is approximately 3 % - 5 % of the total monetary value of accidents involving personal injuries.
The loss of production should be valued in terms of labour costs, not as net wages to employees.
 The reduction of wear and tear of roads: Directly from the project assessment.
Figure 9.
The view of entering user-defined parameters into the WebRailSwe -tool.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
28
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
5.2.2
Additional options
There are additional options in the following parameters:



The regional distribution of user or producer benefits and costs in the worksheet "Options of productivity shock". This distribution matrix determines the final size of the shock that is allocated to the region
where the investment is taking place.
The exchange rate SEK/Euro can be updated or adjusted. The currency in the CGE-modelling is Euro.
The changing of the exchange rate changes the absolute size of the investment and productivity shocks
that in turn change the results of the calculation.
The inflation rate. In this version on the tool, historical data on inflation is coupled with an assumption
of low, constant inflation rate. This should be updated with the newest data once new information becomes available.
The regional distribution of the benefits has a considerable effect on the results of the calculation. Sensitivity
analyses are recommended. The user can choose the ready-made assumptions or make own assumptions. The
ready-made distributions (Table 2) are based on the following assumptions:





Table 2.
5.3
shock to public consumption (changes in maintenance costs and replacement investments) is allocated
completely to the area in question
shock to rail operators (changes in operating costs) is allocated to areas according to the distribution of
value added of railway traffic in the Base scenario
shock to consumer preferences (changes in ticket revenues) is allocated to areas according to the distribution of private consumption of railway traffic in the Base scenario
shock to labour productivity (changes in time costs) is allocated to areas according to the distribution of
labour costs in the Base scenario
shock to construction markets (investment costs) is allocated completely to the area in question.
The assumed regional distributions of the productivity shocks.
The results
The tool calculates the absolute and relative values of the wider economic impacts in the area in focus. The impacts of the investment shock are calculated on a national level, too. The selected economic indicators are:

Real GDP is the standard measure of the real value (not ‘nominal’ market value) of final goods and services produced by the area of the country during one year. Real GDP takes into account the price changes due to inflation and shows the change in the volume of production, i.e. changes apart from price
changes.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
29
The wider economic impacts of transport investments


Household consumption expenditure is typically the largest component of final uses of GDP. It is an indicator of demand in the consumption markets, and it can be used as proxy measure for welfare of the
households.
Employment change is an indicator of the volume of the labour markets. Is can be thought to measure
mainly demand side changes, as long as there are unemployed in the labour market, or labour supply is
not changing much. Population change, apart from being a size measure for the society, is also a closely
related to the supply side of the labour markets. Population is a stock variable and thus the cumulative
changes are not reported.
The results shown in the tool are based on averaging the results from several model runs by a CGE-model RegSweDyn built specifically for this purpose. Therefore, changes in the details of an investment project cannot be
studied with this tool. The results simply apply for an average-type large rail investment project. In the construction of the tool, Umeå–Luleå railway was assumed to represent a typical major rail investment. The construction period and the use phases are thought to follow each other chronologically. However, it is possible to
make other assumptions on this issue, as investment and use phase calculations are conducted separately. The
tool is able to calculate the absolute values of results until the year 2040 that is the last year of the Base scenario.
However, relative impacts of the productivity shock even beyond 2040 may be found on the detailed results, too.
5.4
The CGE-modelling to create the result data banks for the planning tools
5.4.1
Data sources and dimensions
The two models RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn have the same structural design built on national and regional data
from the respective country. The main data sources used in this case were the national and regional accounts of
Statistics Finland (Tilastokeskus) and Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån). National Supply and Use tables are available from both countries. They provide picture of the supply of goods and services by domestic
production and imports and the use of goods and services for intermediate consumption and final use (private
and public consumption, gross fixed capital formation, exports). The Use table also shows how the components
of value added (compensation to employees, other net taxes on production, consumption of fixed capital, net
operating surplus) are generated by industries in the domestic economy (Eurostat, 2008).
The databases for the two CGE models were created in two stages (Figure 6).
1.
2.
National data was used to create national databases. The national Supply and Use tables are useful,
since they give detailed information on the production processes, the interdependencies in production,
the use of goods and services and formation of income generated in production. Automated routines
were used to check the quality, balance and matching of the tables. One important test is making sure
that supply equals demand for all sectors. After checking, corrections and balancing, the Supply and Use
tables provide coherent data linking industries, products and sectors. National Social Accounting Matrices or SAMs, together with corresponding national CGE databases are created in this process.
National databases are regionalised by using additional data from regional level. This requires sector
and region specific data in matrix format for instance on production, investment, labour income, and
population shares. Automated routines were used to create the regional SAMs and the corresponding
CGE databases.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
30
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Figure 10.
The process of creating the CGE-database for the tool.
The national Supply and Use tables have 59 sectors representing primary production, manufacturing and services. Since we need aforementioned shares in regionalisation, the availability of regional data becomes important. Shares are received from regional statistics, and their region and sector dimensions determine the corresponding dimensions of the regional CGE databases.
Regional accounts of Finland cover 19 regions and 30 sectors at NUTS 3 (maakunta) level. At NUTS 2 (suuralue)
level the dimension is 5 regions and 18 sectors. In Sweden, regional accounts cover only 3 sectors at NUTS 3
(län) level, which is too little for the planning tool. The availability of data increases at NUTS 2 (riksåmroden)
level into 8 regions and 15 sectors. In all regional data sources transportation and storage is a separate sector
but an aggregate. We chose to create regional CGE database for Finland both at the NUTS 3 and NUTS 2 level. For
Sweden, this was possible only for NUTS 2 level. The “engine” of the planning tool was based on NUTS 2 databases to gain comparability between the countries. The names of the regions are the following.
Table 3.
Regions of the CGE models RegFinDyn and RegSweDyn
Finland
South Finland
West Finland
East Finland
North Finland
The Åland islands
5 NUTS 2 (suuralue) regions
Sweden
Stockholm
East Middle Sweden
South Sweden
North Middle Sweden
Middle Norrland
Upper Norrland
Småland and the islands
West Sweden
8 NUTS 2 (riksområde) regions
The sector transport and storage was necessary to disaggregate 4 in order to study how rail transportation services react to railroad investments. We managed to distinguish between seven sub-sectors for both countries:
rail transport, road transport, water transport, air transport, warehousing, transport services, and post and courier services. There are altogether 35 sectors in the Finnish, and 20 sectors in the Swedish model (Appendix 2).
The supply and demand structures were taken for Finland from the most detailed national Supply and Use tables
covering 172 sectors. For Sweden there was a special report on the subject available (Bohlin, Levin and Sayeed,
2013).
4
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
31
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
5.4.2
Population dynamics
It is possible that the rail investment affects population and its demographics in the target region. There may not
be enough labour to cover the increased demand during the investment phase. A specific population module
was included into the models to handle this chain of impacts.
Figure 11.
Change of population in the CGE models.
The analysis begins from year T, for instance 2012 for which we have realised population statistics. The goal is
to estimate the population for the next years, for instance 2013 (T + 1) – 2030 by using certain explanatory variables: births, deaths, domestic and foreign net migration (in migration minus out migration). The population
module keeps record on the population structure according to age cohorts up to 95 years of age. The module follows the life of a person: she/he is born, gets older every year, goes to school, starts working, is retired and finally dies. The model evaluates the size of the regional population till the end of the scenarios, year 2040.
The initial fertility and mortality rates are known from the statistics and their development over the future
years follow the assumptions made by the national statistical offices. Migration is dependent on unemployment
differential between the region and nation. The statistically estimated value of net migration elasticity was 0,05.
This means that if the unemployment differential changes in favour of the region by one percentage point, then
net migration to this region increases by 0,05 percentage points. The consequence is that a big part of the
change in employment is covered by migration within the region, commuting or by changed participation rate.
Out-migration is assumed to be a constant share of population, but this share is adjusted to balance domestic net
migration. This is because net migration must be zero over the regions by definition. The population module directs foreign net migration mostly to the regions where there are bigger towns and higher growth rate of population. The model, however, does not keep record on the ethnic background of the population structure.
The model foresees that the total supply of labour in the region changes as the age structure changes since every
age cohort has its own labour market participation rate, which is assumed to be constant with respect to age and
gender (base run) or change marginally along with the wage rate changes (policy run).
The population statistics for the base year as well as parameters for births, deaths and migration are available
from Statistics Finland and Sweden for the base year. Additional, but not complete information on the components of the national forecasts are freely available. The fact that net migration has been modelled as an endogenous variable means that the population prediction will not be totally according to official projections. The model calculates for every year of the scenario changes in population by age cohort and gender. The results can be
aggregated according to need, for instance the change of population in working age (16–64).
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
32
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
6
DEMONSTRATION OF THE TOOL
6.1
Exploring the wider economic impacts of a major rail investment
6.1.1
Norrbotniabanan
In Sweden a major rail investment within the Bothnian corridor is The North Bothnia Line (Norrbotniabanan), a
new railway between Umeå and Luleå (270 km). The estimated investment cost is 21 725 million SEK (2 508
million euros). According to the project assessment (Banverket 2009), the major benefits of the investment are
time savings (net present value 8 639 million SEK), transport cost savings (4 098 million SEK) and increased
ticket revenues for rail operators (2 397 million SEK). The total net present value of the investment is 208 million SEK meaning that the investment is feasible with a very small margin.
The SamLok-calculations (see also Chapter 3.2) of the Norrbotniabanan show, that the increased accessibility
increases the number of employees (+0,0..+0,3 %) in the region and on the total income of the households (+650
million SEK per year ten years after opening). On the other hand, there are negative impacts on the built and
natural environment. The overall conclusion of the project assessment is that the positive margin of the benefits
is stable. As regards the non-monetised impacts, the positive impacts on the regional economy are considered
more valuable than the negative impacts on the environment. (Banverket 2009.)
Table 4.
A summary of the input parameters for WebRailSwe in the case of Norrbotniabanan.
The input parameters entered by the user
Source of information; calculations by the user
1. The national area in focus
SE33
2. The year of the price-level in the assessment
2006
3. The investment cost (million SEK)
4.
5.
6.
7.
The first year of the construction work (max 2020)
Length of the investment period, years (max 10)
The year of annual impacts from the CBA
Direct economic impacts from the CBA per year
Maintenance of railways (million SEK)
Maintenance of roads (million SEK)
Replacement investments in railways
Operating cost savings and time-cost savings (million SEK)
Increase of ticket revenues (million SEK)
Operating cost savings (million SEK)
21 000
The investment cost here must be the same as in the
cost-benefit calculation (the difference between the
investment alternative UA and the reference alternative JA)
2010
9
2020
-13,0
38,0
69,0
257
140,0
-92
Time savings for business trips (million SEK)
148
Accident cost savings regarding the loss of production (million SEK)
1,6
The reduction of wear and tear of roads
The productivity and investment are directed to
Upper Norrland area
8
The values of maintenance cost savings, benefits for
the transport operators are directly from the costbenefit calculus of the project. The budget effects
(changes of tax revenues) are omitted here since they
are endogenous parameters in the calculation.
This value has been derived from the net present
value (8 639 million SEK) by using information presented in the background reports and ASEKguidance: The share of business travel on this railway
is 38 % of all travel, the value of business travel time
is 274 crowns/h, the discount rate is 4 %, the annual
growth of travel is 1,7 % and the annual increase of
the value of time is 1,2 %.
This value has been derived from the annual value
(31 million SEK) by using information presented in
the ASEK-guidance: The share of production loss of
the accident costs is 5 %.
Directly from the cost-benefit calculus of the project.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
33
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
The main results of the calculation of the wider economic impacts are presented in the Figures 12 and 13 below:



The investment spending leads to considerable positive economic impacts in the area of Upper Norrland. The investment shock increases the economic growth in Upper Norrland by 1–2 % compared with
the base scenario. The increase of household consumption is 1–3 %. The investment increases employment and population in the area, too. According to the base scenario, however, the demand and
supply of labour in the area will continue to decrease.
The direct economic benefits of the investment cause an annually growing positive impact on economic
growth, employment and population. These impacts are relatively small (0,002 % … 0,12 %) compared
with the baseline.
From a national perspective, the investment has negative economic impacts because the investment in
Upper Norrland means other opportunities of investments forgone. In the tool, the national opportunity
cost of an investment is measured by increasing the value added tax to finance the investment, which
dents the profitability of all the economic activities.
What is the added value of this information compared with the original CBA? Firstly, the economic implications
of the very large sum of investment spending are not considered in the traditional project assessment. According to the WebRailSwe calculation, the government spending increases the economic growth in the Upper Norrland area more than the actual spending is. On the other hand, the negative impacts of financing the investment
become visible on a national level. Secondly, the WebRailSwe calculation show the wider economic impacts following the direct cost savings of the investment considerable smaller than in the SamLok-calculation referred in
the project assessment. The impacts are, however, positive and thus confirm the conclusions made in the project
assessment.
Figure 12.
Summary of results extracted from the WebRailSwe case calculation of Norrbotniabanan.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
34
Figure 13.
Figures of results extracted from the WebRailSwe case calculation of Norrbotniabanan.
6.1.2
Seinäjoki–Oulu
In Finland a major rail investment within the Bothnian corridor is the Seinäjoki–Oulu -railway project (335 km).
The section between Seinäjoki and Oulu is one of Finland's busiest single-track lines. The estimated investment
cost is 860 million EUR. According to the project assessment (Ratahallintokeskus 2006), the major benefits of
the investment are savings in the accident and environmental costs due to increased rail travel (net present
value 290 million EUR) and consumer surplus of the rail operator (270 million EUR). The benefit cost ratio of
the investment was 1,64 in the 2006 assessment when the cost estimate was 500 million EUR instead of current
860 million EUR. Considering the increase of the investment cost, the project is still feasible (B/C > 1).
Table 5.
A summary of the input parameters for WebRailFin in the case of Seinäjoki–Oulu.
The input parameters entered by the user
Source of information; calculations by the user
1. The national area in focus
The investment spending is directed to Western
Finland area (40 %) and Northern Finland area
(60 %). The share of benefits is directed to Eastern
Finland (40 %), Northern Finland (40 %) and other
parts of Finland (20 %).
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The year of the price-level in the assessment
The investment cost (million euro)
The first year of the construction work (max 2020)
Length of the investment period, years (max 10)
The year of annual impacts from the CBA
Direct economic impacts from the CBA per year
Maintenance of railways (million euro)
Maintenance of roads (million euro)
Replacement investments in railways (million euro)
Operating cost savings and time-cost savings (million euro)
Increase of ticket revenues (million euro)
Operating cost savings (million euro)
FI19,
FI20
2006
860
2008
10
2018
-0,34
..
..
11,33
19,34
-2,68
Time savings for business trips (million euro)
6,43
Accident cost savings regarding the loss of production (million euro)
0,25
The reduction of wear and tear of roads (million
euro)
0,28
The values of maintenance cost savings, benefits for
the transport operators are directly from the costbenefit calculus of the project. The budget effects
(changes of tax revenues) are omitted here since they
are endogenous parameters in the calculation.
This value has been derived from the annual value of
time savings (12,16 million euro) by using information presented in the background reports and
appraisal guidance: The share of business travel on
this railway is 24 % of all travel, the value of business
travel time is 25,60 euro/h and that of other travel
7,22 euro/h (2005).
This value has been derived from the annual value
(8,4 million euro) by assuming the share of production loss of the accident costs to be 3 %.
Directly from the cost-benefit calculus of the project.
The main results of the calculation of the wider economic impacts are presented in the Figures 13, 14 and 15 below:


The investment spending leads to positive economic impacts in the areas of Northern Finland and
Western Finland. The investment shock increases the economic growth in Northern Finland by 0,2–
0,6 % compared with the base scenario. The increase of household consumption is 0,2–1,0 %. The investment increases employment and population in the area, too.
In Western Finland, the impact on economic growth is 0,05–0,25 % compared with the base scenario.
The increase of household consumption is 0,05–0,35 %. The investment population in the area increases. There is however negative impacts in terms of decreasing employment. This happens because in the
tool the investment is financed by increasing the value added tax for a period of 20 years. Money is directed to more capital intensive purposes and employment decreases though the other economic indi-
The wider economic impacts of transport investments

Figure 14.
cators are positive. From a national perspective, all the indicators are on the negative side because of
the tax increase.
The direct economic benefits of the investment cause an annually growing positive impact on economic
growth, employment and population. These impacts are small compared with the baseline or with the
impacts of the investment spending.
Summary of results extracted from the WebRailFin case calculation of Seinäjoki–Oulu.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
37
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Figure 15.
Figures of results extracted from the WebRailFin case calculation of Seinäjoki–Oulu in the area of
Northern Finland.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
38
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Figure 16.
Figures of results extracted from the WebRailFin case calculation of Seinäjoki–Oulu in the area of
Western Finland.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
39
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
6.2
6.2.1
Exploring the regional differences of wider economic impacts
Comparing similar investments in different national areas of Sweden
The wider economic impacts vary between the national areas, because the economic characteristics of the areas
are different. These differences can be assessed with the WebRailSwe -tool by locating a same sized investment
shock or a same sized productivity shock in different national areas of Sweden. For this demonstration we assume first a rail investment of 10 000 million SEK, and then an accessibility improvement worth 200 million SEK
(time savings in business travel). The question of regional differences of economic impacts is of interest when
there are competing investments of similar magnitude and impacts in various parts of the country.
The results of the investment shock calculations are summarised in Table 6. The absolute values of the economic
impacts are larger in the large economies like Stockholm and West Sweden. On the contrary, the relative size of
the economic impacts is larger in the smaller economies like Upper Norrland and Middle Norrland.
Table 6.
Wider economic impacts of a 10 000 million SEK investment (2010–2019) shock in the national areas
of Sweden in 2019.
Real GDP of the area,
million SEK
% of Base scenario
Household consumption,
million SEK
% of Base scenario
Employment change,
persons
% of Base scenario
Population change,
persons (stock)
% of Base scenario
Stockholm
East
Middle
Sweden
Småland
and the
islands
South
Sweden
West
Sweden
North
Middle
Sweden
Middle
Norrland
Upper
Norrland
1 925
1 840
1 794
1 877
1 862
1 772
1 692
1 747
0,19 %
0,36 %
0,64 %
0,39 %
0,27 %
0,66 %
1,39 %
0,98 %
1 148
1 344
1 249
1 288
1 293
1 250
1 225
1 247
0,27 %
0,52 %
0,91 %
0,56 %
0,39 %
0,94 %
1,97 %
1,40 %
469
614
589
599
568
568
580
546
0,04 %
0,08 %
0,15 %
0,09 %
0,06 %
0,15 %
0,35 %
0,24 %
477
653
577
651
586
588
523
524
0,02 %
0,04 %
0,07 %
0,04 %
0,03 %
0,07 %
0,14 %
0,10 %
The results of the productivity shock calculations are summarised in Table 7. The general observation is that the
relative sizes of the economic impacts are not so different between the national areas. One main explanation for
this is that the accessibility benefits of rail investment are generally widely spread.
What could be concluded from this kind of an analysis if we had two equally efficient competing projects - one in
the South Sweden area and the other in the Middle Norrland area, for example? From a national point of view, a
larger positive effect would be achieved by allocating the investment spending to the South Sweden area. From a
regional policy point of view, on the other hand, investing in Middle Norrland would reduce the economic gaps
between the national areas of Sweden.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
40
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Table 7.
Wider economic impacts of an accessibility improvement worth 200 million SEK a year in the national
areas of Sweden in 2019.
Stockholm
East
Middle
Sweden
Småland
and the
islands
South
Sweden
West
Sweden
North
Middle
Sweden
Middle
Norrland
Upper
Norrland
91,8
46,8
33,6
46,9
93,2
28,9
15,7
22,8
0,0089 %
0,0092 %
0,0119 %
0,0098 %
0,0135 %
0,0107 %
0,0129 %
0,0128 %
26,7
16,7
11,5
15,8
31,6
10,0
5,6
8,0
0,0062 %
0,0065 %
0,0084 %
0,0069 %
0,0095 %
0,0075 %
0,0090 %
0,0090 %
19,0
13,1
9,0
12,5
24,0
7,6
4,1
5,7
0,0017 %
0,0018 %
0,0023 %
0,0019 %
0,0026 %
0,0021 %
0,0025 %
0,0025 %
6,4
4,7
3,1
4,6
8,2
2,8
1,5
2,0
0,0003 %
0,0003 %
0,0004 %
0,0003 %
0,0004 %
0,0003 %
0,0004 %
0,0004 %
Real GDP of the area,
million SEK
% of Base scenario
Household consumption,
million SEK
% of Base scenario
Employment change,
persons
% of Base scenario
Population change,
persons (stock)
% of Base scenario
6.2.2
Comparing similar investments in different national areas of Finland
As regards Finland and the WebRailFin -tool, we assume a rail investment of 200 million euros, and then an annual accessibility improvement worth 5 million euros (time savings in business travel). The results of the investment shock calculations are summarised in Table 8. The economic impacts vary with the size of the economy: The larger the economy the larger the absolute economic impact. On the contrary, the relative size of the
economic impacts increases when the size of the economy decreases.
Table 8.
Wider economic impacts of a 200 million euros investment (2015–2019) shock in the national areas
of Finland in 2024.
Southern
Finland
Eastern
Finland
Western
Finland
Northern
Finland
Real GDP of the area, million EUR
189,30
37,32
87,61
58,64
% of Base scenario
0,16 %
0,21 %
0,18 %
0,28 %
Household consumption, million EUR
% of Base scenario
Employment change, persons
% of Base scenario
Population change, persons (stock)
% of Base scenario
81,44
20,41
37,43
27,77
0,13 %
0,22 %
0,15 %
0,25 %
31,47
68,57
25,94
47,73
0,003 %
0,032 %
0,005 %
0,02 %
208,04
55,80
131,38
93,64
0,007 %
0,009 %
0,009 %
0,014 %
The results of the productivity shock calculations are summarised in Table 9. The relative sizes of the economic
impacts are relatively bigger in Eastern Finland and in Northern Finland than in Southern Finland and Western
Finland.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
41
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Table 9.
Wider economic impacts of an accessibility improvement worth 5 million euros a year in the national
areas of Finland in 2019.
Real GDP of the area, million EUR
% of Base scenario
Household consumption, million EUR
% of Base scenario
Employment change, persons
% of Base scenario
Population change, persons (stock)
% of Base scenario
Southern
Finland
Eastern
Finland
Western
Finland
Northern
Finland
5,02
0,92
2,12
1,05
0,0042 %
0,0051 %
0,0044 %
0,0051 %
2,63
0,50
1,11
0,58
0,0043 %
0,0053 %
0,0046 %
0,0052 %
15,70
3,20
7,47
3,68
0,0013 %
0,0015 %
0,0014 %
0,0015 %
7,00
1,85
3,67
1,98
0,0002 %
0,0003 %
0,0003 %
0,0003 %
The WebRail -tools are operating at the Nuts 2 level. As far as regional planning is concerned, the use of Nuts 3
resolution of calculation would be more useful. In this project, the number of scenario simulations could not
have been larger. It is however reasonable to assume, that the relative size of an economic impact in a Nuts 2 area is approximately the same in the Nuts 3 regions within the area. This assumption allows the user of the WebRail -tool to estimate economic impacts at Nuts 3 level based on the WebRail-tool’s results and regional statistics (see Table 10 for demonstration).
Table 10.
Estimation of the economic indicators for selected Nuts 3 regions based on the baseline and results of
the WebRailFin –tool and regional statistics (Statistics Finland 2012).
Step 1: Get the economic data for the Nuts 3
regions in question from the National statistics.
Calculate the growth rate for each indicator/Nuts 2 area in question by using the Base
scenario of the WebRail -tool.
Western
Southern
Finland
OstroGrowth
bothnia
2011 => 2024
Ostrobothnia
Northern
Finland
Growth
2011 => 2024
Central
Ostrobothnia
Northern
Ostrobothnia
Real GDP of the area 2011, million EUR
Estimation of Real GDP of the area 2024
16,14 %
5 467
6 349
6 384
7 414
16,23 %
2 262
2 630
6 384
7 420
Household consumption 2011, million EUR
Estimation of Household consumption 2024
16,44 %
3 303
3 846
3 046
3 546
17,65 %
1 115
1 311
6 459
7 599
Employment 2011, persons
Estimation of Employment 2024
-1,33 %
87 992
86 826
86 568
85 421
-3,52 %
31 420
30 313
164 166
158 384
Population 2011, persons
Estimation of Population 2024
4,10 %
193 620
201 560
178 526
185 848
3,27 %
68 403
70 641
396 426
409 399
Step 2: Use the relative results from the WebRail -tool for each Nuts 3 region within the
respective Nuts 2 area. Calculate the absolute
values for each region by using the regional
estimates of step 1.
Real GDP of the area, million EUR
% of Base scenario
Household consumption, million EUR
% of Base scenario
Employment change, persons
% of Base scenario
Population change, persons (stock)
% of Base scenario
Western
Finland
Southern
Ostrobothnia
Ostrobothnia
Northern
Finland
Central
Ostrobothnia
Northern
Ostrobothnia
87,61
0,18 %
37,43
0,15 %
25,94
0,005 %
131,38
0,009 %
11,43
0,18 %
5,77
0,15 %
4,34
0,005 %
18,14
0,009 %
13,35
0,18 %
5,32
0,15 %
4,27
0,005 %
16,73
0,009 %
58,64
0,28 %
27,77
0,25 %
47,73
0,020 %
93,64
0,014 %
7,36
0,28 %
3,28
0,25 %
6,06
0,020 %
9,89
0,014 %
37,88
0,28 %
19,00
0,25 %
31,68
0,020 %
57,32
0,014 %
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
42
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
6.3
6.3.1
Exploring the Base scenario for regional projections
Sweden
The Base scenario defined for the WebRailSwe -tool (see Chapter 5.3 for more detailed explanation) may be useful data as such in various planning projects (not only rail investments). A time series 2013–2040 for each of the
four economic result indicators is produced in the “Base scenario” -worksheet for the selected national area. An
example of printing the Base scenario indicators is presented in Tables 11–14.
In Table 11 we see that Stockholm and South Sweden are the most expansive regions, where the GDP growth
reaches 70 per cent during 2015–2040. In turn, Upper Norrland and North Middle Sweden grow by around 50
per cent during the same period. This outcome is a compound result of past trends in migration, structure of
economy, as well as of continued agglomeration forces that make economic development faster in the central
regions and slower in peripheral regions.
Table 11.
WebRailSwe Base scenario of real GDP in the national areas of Sweden (million SEK rounded to hundreds).
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
Stockholm
929 000
1 059 200
1 180 400
1 311 100
1 455 000
1 611 800
East Middle Sweden
465 500
518 600
567 300
619 700
677 800
741 300
Småland and the islands
259 400
286 100
310 900
338 000
368 000
400 900
South Sweden
431 900
488 800
542 200
600 200
664 300
734 000
West Sweden
632 400
703 200
767 500
837 000
913 600
997 200
North Middle Sweden
249 200
273 600
295 600
319 300
345 700
374 800
Middle Norrland
111 700
124 100
135 300
147 300
160 900
176 000
Upper Norrland
163 800
180 900
196 100
211 900
229 500
248 700
In broad terms, the development of private consumption mirrors that of GDP (Table 12). However, there are
some differences as well. Upper Norrland does relatively better in this comparison, as its consumption volume is
closer to a median growth rate.
Table 12.
WebRailSwe Base scenario of real household consumption in the national areas of Sweden (million
SEK rounded to hundreds).
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
Stockholm
386 000
438 400
488 800
543 500
603 900
669 800
East Middle Sweden
236 600
263 600
288 000
314 300
343 500
375 400
Småland and the islands
125 800
139 200
151 200
164 300
178 700
194 400
South Sweden
206 800
233 600
259 400
287 500
318 700
352 800
West Sweden
305 100
339 400
370 300
403 600
440 300
480 400
North Middle Sweden
122 000
135 000
146 000
157 700
170 700
184 900
Middle Norrland
56 400
63 600
69 700
76 300
83 700
91 800
Upper Norrland
80 900
90 700
99 000
107 600
116 800
126 800
The indicators of employment and population growth (Tables 13 and 14) tell more or less the same story:
Stockholm and South Sweden are growing fastest, while northern regions fall behind, even in absolute terms.
Actually, employment declines in all the regions north of East Middle Sweden, which reflects the combined effect
of unfavourable age structure and lack of labour demand, as well problems in attracting investments, as well
problems in attracting the youth to stay in their native region.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
43
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
Total population declines in the three northernmost regions, while other regions are expected to have at least
some growth during 2015–2040.
Table 13.
WebRailSwe Base scenario of employment in the national areas of Sweden (number of persons rounded to hundreds).
Stockholm
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
1 061 300
1 125 200
1 163 200
1 195 400
1 224 300
1 252 200
East Middle Sweden
728 100
743 300
750 400
756 300
763 000
771 900
Småland and the islands
391 200
394 700
394 700
395 200
397 000
400 300
South Sweden
638 100
669 200
686 300
701 300
715 700
730 300
West Sweden
911 900
927 300
931 700
935 100
939 500
946 600
North Middle Sweden
370 100
367 100
362 100
358 300
356 300
356 400
Middle Norrland
168 200
166 500
164 700
163 500
163 200
163 900
Upper Norrland
233 400
229 400
223 800
219 200
216 100
214 600
Table 14.
WebRailSwe Base scenario of population in the national areas of Sweden (number of persons rounded
to hundreds).
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
Stockholm
2 205 500
2 363 400
2 461 000
2 538 900
2 603 600
2 663 700
East Middle Sweden
1 616 500
1 673 200
1 708 400
1 732 900
1 749 700
1 764 500
Småland and the islands
827 300
849 900
861 400
868 600
872 800
876 300
South Sweden
1 458 700
1 543 900
1 591 900
1 629 000
1 659 400
1 688 300
West Sweden
1 936 700
2 001 900
2 039 500
2 064 600
2 080 600
2 093 900
North Middle Sweden
830 200
838 000
838 900
836 900
832 500
828 200
Middle Norrland
369 200
371 500
371 400
370 400
368 700
367 500
Upper Norrland
509 600
509 600
504 700
498 400
491 400
485 000
6.3.2
Finland
The Base scenario indicators within the WebRailFin -tool are presented in Tables 15–18. In Table 15 we see
that also in Finland the economic development is faster in the central regions and slower in peripheral regions.
In Southern Finland is the GDP growth reaches 60 per cent during 2015–2040. Western Finland and Northern
grow by around 50 per cent, while in the Eastern Finland the growth is only 38 % during the same period.
Table 15.
WebRailFin Base scenario of real GDP in the national areas of Finland (million EUR rounded to hundreds).
2015
108 900
2020
117 700
2025
129 900
2030
143 700
2035
158 300
2040
174 700
Eastern Finland
16 900
17 700
19 000
20 300
21 800
23 400
Western Finland
44 000
46 900
51 100
56 000
61 200
67 000
Northern Finland
19 100
20 400
22 200
24 200
26 300
28 700
Southern Finland
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
44
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
The development of private consumption follows that of GDP in the Southern Finland (Table 16). The other areas do relatively better in this comparison. The growth of consumption in Western Finland, Northern Finland and
Eastern Finland is 53 %, 52 % and 41 %, respectively.
Table 16.
WebRailFin Base scenario of real household consumption in the national areas of Finland (million
EUR rounded to hundreds).
Southern Finland
2015
56 000
2020
60 400
2025
66 500
2030
73 500
2035
81 100
2040
89 500
Eastern Finland
8 800
9 300
10 000
10 700
11 500
12 400
Western Finland
22 500
24 000
26 200
28 600
31 300
34 300
Northern Finland
10 200
10 900
12 000
13 100
14 300
15 600
The indicators of employment and population growth (Tables 17 and 18) repeat the previous conclusions.
Southern Finland is growing fastest in terms of population (14 % between 2015 and 2014) and employment
(9 %). The population is expected to grow in Western Finland (8 %) and Northern Finland (6 %), too, but unemployment will increase. In Eastern Finland, the total population declines by 9 % and employment by 16 %
during 2015–2040.
Table 17.
WebRailFin Base scenario of employment in the national areas of Finland (number of persons rounded to hundreds).
2015
1 217 900
2020
1 225 200
2025
1 244 400
2030
1 267 900
2035
1 295 900
2040
1 326 400
Eastern Finland
230 900
214 200
203 400
197 200
194 400
193 400
Western Finland
558 200
550 300
550 800
556 200
565 000
575 000
Northern Finland
247 000
240 400
238 300
239 000
241 500
244 400
Southern Finland
Table 18.
WebRailFin Base scenario of population in the national areas of Finland (number of persons rounded
to hundreds).
Southern Finland
Eastern Finland
Western Finland
Northern Finland
2015
2 766 900
2020
2 860 600
2025
2 947 100
2030
3 023 900
2035
3 090 600
2040
3 149 200
640 700
628 600
619 500
611 300
603 000
594 500
1 382 500
1 412 000
1 439 200
1 461 800
1 479 800
1 494 400
657 000
668 500
678 500
686 300
692 000
696 300
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
45
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
7
FINAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Investments in transport capital reduce the costs of transport and production, and thus contribute to economic
growth and productivity in the long run. The investment spending as such has more immediate economic impacts during the construction phase. The ways in which new or improved transport capacity influences economic system are complex and often indirect in nature. The improved transport infrastructure will not improve the
economic vitality of a region unless other positive factors are present. The characteristics of the economy affected as well as land-use and other policies must be receptive and supportive to the investment and its impacts.
Transport sector has a long tradition of using the principles of practical cost benefit analysis (CBA) in transport
project appraisal that analyses the primary impacts of transport project proposals. There is, however, a growing
need to know more about the wider economic impacts regarding individual infrastructure projects and also
more generally concerning transport policies. Thus far, the only general and widely spread guideline for the assessment of wider economic impacts is that there may be such impacts but those must not be added to the basic
cost-benefit calculus to avoid double counting.
One may identify several analytical techniques for the estimation of the economic development impacts. There
is a large variety of tools and methodologies from simple case studies to complex economic simulation modelling. However, there is no single analytical tool that is equally useful to all of the information needs in the planning and decision making. The purpose and level of desired sophistication of the analysis varies.
In Sweden, there is already a selected tool for the estimation of wider economic benefits. The SamLok -model is
based on an estimated relationship between labour income and workplace accessibility. In Finland there have
not been efforts to define a common tool to assess the wider economic impacts of transport investments – until
the launch of this project.
The concept of an assessment tool was defined here to be a quantitative model system that uses direct cost estimates from the CBA as input parameters and calculates the wider economic impacts on a regional level. The
original idea in the beginning of this project was to use the RegFinDyn CGE-model in the assessment, and to develop its twin model RegSweDyn for Sweden. The literature review confirmed that CGE-models in general are
the most powerful tools to handle the complexity of the economic development impacts.
The use of the actual RegFinDyn or RegSweDyn-models is, however, rather time-consuming and requires specific skills and knowledge. In this project we tried to develop an assessment tool that combines the complex general equilibrium simulations with the idea of a relatively simple user interface in MS Excel workbook that uses
the results of a large number of previously made CGE-model simulations.
The result of the tool development was twin tools that were named WebRailSwe and WebRailFin. The tools are
made for a quantitative approximation of the wider economic impacts of large rail investments in the national
areas of Sweden or Finland. The wider economic impacts calculated by this tool are supplementary to the results
of a standard project assessment (CBA). The assessment of improved options is not included in either of these
methodologies (Figure 17).
The tools use generalised results of RegSweDyn and RegFinDyn CGE-modelling. The Swedish tool covers 8 regions (Nuts 2) and is based on generalised results of 128 scenario simulations. The Finnish tool covers 4 regions
(Nuts 2 except Åland) and is based on a total of 200 scenario simulations. Both tools contain the following main
parts:
 Basic calculation where the user enters the input parameters and receives the main results of the calculation
 Base scenario (2013–2040), that defines the development of the four economic indicators used here
(GDP, household consumption, employment and population) as a reference alternative for the investment under investigation
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
46
The wider economic impacts of transport investments


Calculation of the investment shock that takes the user-defined input parameters of the investment
spending and returns the values of the economic indicators
Calculation of the productivity shock that takes the user-defined input parameters of the user and producer benefits and returns the values of the economic indicators.
The basic case of using the tool is to calculate the wider economic impacts of a particular rail investment. The
tool can also be used to compare the economic impacts of similar investment in various areas. The projection of
the Base scenario may be useful as such.
It has been proved that it is possible to have a tool that is relatively simple to use but gives results that are based
on comprehensive CGE-modelling. This can be considered a promising start for a wider use of advanced modelling of economic impacts in the transport sector. However, the results of this project, WebRailFin and WebRailSwe, are only applicable to rather large rail investments, and the results are calculated and presented on a
spatial resolution that is rather coarse. Further work is needed to define similar tools for road investments and
other forms of transport improvements. The spatial resolution should then be defined, too.
Figure 17.
The complementary role of WebRailSwe and WebRailFin -tools in the context of transport infratsructure impact assessment.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
47
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
8
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Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
48
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
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Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
49
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
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Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
50
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
APPENDIX 1
Examples of CGE models in BGLC countries
Country
Finland
Sweden
Name of model
RegFinDyn
Type of model
Dynamic regional CGE
VATTAGE
Dynamic CGE
SAMLOK
Localisation
model
SAMGODS The Swedish
national freight
model system
Transport model
multi-sectorial
input-output
SAINT
Comparativestatic CGE
The Öresund
model
Comparativestatic SCGE
Main features
 Applicable to NUTS 1, 2 and 3 levels, top-down technique for
municipalities
 Many sectors, 18-28 (primary, industry, services) depending on
the regional level
 Calibrated to economic structure of the latest normal year 2008
 Data source: Statistic Finland
 Calculations used in more than 50 scientific case studies, many of
which are investment studies
 Used in Pisara railway investment evaluation
 project and in several other infrastructure, like mining investment studies
 Model of the Finnish economy (a whole country model)
 Database based on national accounts and IO data, includes behavioural parameters
 Supporting transactions between institutional sectors of the
economy
 Used for public policy analysis
 Carlino and Mills (1987) modelling approach
 The only Swedish model that provides a simultaneous determination of the location of population and employment
 Uses accessibility measures generated by SAMPERS (The Swedish
National Travel Demand Forecasting Tool)
 Estimated on a beneficial measure of changes in accessibility
 Used to estimate wider economic effects by Swedish transport
authorities
 Estimations are based on “quasi-disaggregate” data on the
“kommun” (=”municipality”, roughly corresponding to “cities”,
but large cities typically consist of many municipalities)
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



Aggregate-disaggregate-aggregate (ADA) model system
Sweden is divided into 288 zones, plus 174 regions abroad
34 commodity groups
Simplistic model structure
Short and long run simulations
Providing base line for larger projects
Used for 2030 national prognoses
Plans to include a SCGE module to the model have been already
presented
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
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

A development of the IFPRI model
Used for closed economies as well as for small open economies
Flexible modelling of trade margins
Data based on SAM
55 commodity groups
Base year 2001
Data source: Statistic Sweden
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



Basic model structure developed by Bröcker
Calibrated to pre-bridge data from the year 1999
5 regions: 3 from Sweden and 2 from Denmark
Based on SAM separately for Swedish and Danish regions
17 sectors after aggregation
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
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51
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
 Extensions: treatment of trade with the rest of the world, possibility of including barriers to trade, and calibration procedures to
fit available data
Norway
Poland
Germany
PINGO A model for
prediction of
regional and
interregional
freight transport
in Norway
RegPolDyn
Comparativestatic SCGE
 19 regions (NUTS 3) plus one region that corresponds to all other
countries
 Data source: Statistic Norway, NEMO, the Foreign Trade Statistics
 13 commodity groups
 Data organised as SAM
 Includes imports and exports
Dynamic SCGE
Technology Rich
CGE Model of
Germany
Static CGE
 Similar technical features like RegFinDyn, except the population
module
 Operating on NUTS 2 data: 16 regions with 15 sectors per region
 Benchmark year: 2006
 Data source: Central Statistical Office of Poland and Regional
Statistical Offices
 Small open economy assumption
 Based on IO table
 Detailed representation of electricity generation, private
transport, and congestion effects
 Transport module includes: type of vehicle, distance, time periods, road networks
 18 sectors
 4 transport sectors include: aviation, water, rail, and other land
transport
 Benchmark year: 2004
Sources: Metsäranta et. al., 2012; Sundberg, 2005; Vold et al., 2007; Törmä, H., Zawalinska, K., 2007; Zawalinska,
2009; Bohlin, 2010; Abrell, 2009; Anderstig et al., 2007; Karlsson et al., 2012; Röcklinger, 2012; Honkatukia,
2009
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
52
The wider economic impacts of transport investments
APPENDIX 2
Sectors of the CGE models.
Finland
1. Agriculture and hunting
2. Forestry and logging
3. Fishing and aquaculture
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Mining and quarrying
Food, beverages and tobacco products
Textiles, wearing apparel, leather and related products
Wood and products of wood and cork etc., except furniture
Paper and paper products, printing and reproduction of recorded media
9. Coke and refined petroleum products, chemicals and chemical products, basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations, rubber and plastic products
10. Other non-metallic mineral products
11. Basic metals, fabricated metal products, except machinery
and equipment
12. Computer, electronic and optical products, electrical equipment
13. Machinery and equipment n.e.c.
14. Motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, other transport
equipment
15. Furniture, other manufacturing, repair and installation of
machinery and equipment
16. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, water
supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities
17. Construction
18. Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles
19. Rail transport
20. Road transport
Sweden
1. Agriculture, forestry and fishing
2. Mining, quarrying and manufacturing industry
3. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning, water
supply, waste
4. Construction
5. Wholesale and retail trade
6. Rail transport
7. Road transport
8. Water transport
9. Air transport
10. Warehousing
11. Transport services
12. Post and courier services
13. Hotels and restaurants
14. Information and communication
15. Financial services and insurance activities
16. Real estate activities
17. Professional, scientific, technical and administrative
activities
18. Public authorities and national defence
19. Education
20. Human health and social work activities; personal
and art services
21. Water transport
22. Air transport
23. Warehousing
24. Transport services
25. Post and courier services
26. Accommodation and food service activities
27. Information and communication
28. Financial and insurance activities
29. Other real estate activities
30. Renting and operating of own or leased real estate
31. Professional, scientific and technical activities
32. Administrative and support service activities
33. Public administration and defence, compulsory social security
34. Education
35. Human health and social work activities, arts, entertainment
and recreation, other service activities, activities of households as employers etc.
Contact: Jukka Lindfors
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +358 3 2481235
53