Session 3A: Infrastructure Impact (Auditorium 1)
Moderator: Elisabetta Gentile
Assessing socio-economic impacts of infrastructure project through geospatial analysis
Hyun Son and Homer Pagkalinawan
Geospatial technologies are increasingly being used to monitor and evaluate the impact development interventions. This paper utilized geospatial datasets and analyses to examine the impacts of road infrastructure improvements supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) along the Dushanbe–Uzbekistan Border in Tajikistan, which traverses CAREC Corridor 3. It sought to evaluate the ADB project’s impact on economic growth along the districts of Rudaki, Tursunzoda, Hissor (Gissar) and Shahrinav that benefitted from road enhancements and the rehabilitation of the Dusti border crossing point. The paper used nighttime light (NTL)—a well-researched proxy indicator for economic development that examines the amount of light intensity produced both by man-made and natural sources from the Earth’s surface—to undertake a difference-in-difference (DID) analysis before project completion (2013–2016) and after project completion (2016–2019). The paper found that the sum of NTL increased in the four project districts both before and after project completion. While the NTL growth rate slowed in the Rudaki, Hissor (Gissar) and Shahrinav districts after project completion, it increased in Tursunzoda where the project’s renovated Dusti border crossing point is located and where pedestrian-friendly infrastructure and facilities had been constructed and/or upgraded. The paper also found that in the Dusti border crossing point, NTL is correlated with cargo volume and number of vehicles implying that growth in cargo coincides with growth in NTL sources. Finally, the paper applied DID analysis to examine the project’s impact on poverty reduction. It found that the decline in the percentage of poor households coincides with project completion—that is, there were fewer poor households after completion compared to before completion. Similarly, there were fewer poor households in treatment regions of Dushanbe and Tadzhikistan Territories compared to non-treatment regions.
JEL Code/s: O12, O18, O22
Assessing the impact of ADB infrastructure investments with Landsat data: GMS Corridor in PRC and Viet Nam
Yesim Elhan-Kayalar, Yasuyuki Sawada, Hiroyuki Miyazaki and Ruo Shangguan
This paper uses historical Landsat satellite image data to investigate changes in the land cover and urban growth from 1987 to 2019, in areas supported by four ADB road infrastructure projects along the Greater Mekong Subregion corridor in south People’s Republic of China and north Viet Nam. Our analyses indicate that while a more developed road network is a factor that contributes to urbanization, and cities expand around the newly developed road network, it is not the only one in the studied geographic areas, with the exception of Lang Son city.
JEL Code/s: R11, R12
Impacts from improvement of ground rail accessibility to/from city airport to local economies: Case study of Tokyo, Japan
Kiyoshi Taniguchi, Hirokazu Mizuno, Hironori Kato and Jin Murakami
The urban rail network has been developed as part of long-term master plans under the guidance of the Japanese Ministry of Transport. The latest master plan prioritizes improving airport connectivity to help enhance international competitiveness. This study focuses on the potential economic impact of improved rail transit accessibility to airports in Tokyo. A quasi-experimental design using spatial difference-in-differences analysis, propensity score matching, and inverse probability weighting is used to assess the economic impacts in different localities in Tokyo. The empirical results demonstrate that rail transit accessibility positively affects population density, land prices, and employment density.
JEL Code/s: E24, L92, R42, R58