Regionale Beschäftigungswirkungen von öffentlichen Investitionen in Strassen- und Schieneninfrastruktur

• Employment effects of infrastructure investment depend in particular on their effect on regional accessibility. Therefore, we examine the impact of accessibility via rail and road on regional employment in German counties (“Kreise”, NUTS3). According to economic theory an increase in accessibility raises productivity and output. While the first effect lowers employment the latter expands labor demand. It is an empirical question which of both is stronger. The base for the regressions is the employment dynamic approach of Combes et al. (2004) which we adjust to our purpose and extend by considering accessibility. We use new calculated accessiblity data of Spiekermann & Wegener as well as employment data of the IAB (Institute of Employment Research, Nuremberg) for our econometric study on German counties and on the sectors on the county level. We apply robust estimates, spa‐tial regressions and consider endogeneity, confounding and unobserved heterogeneity. The data show strong changes in road accessibility in East Germany as well as changes in rail accessibility mainly in West Germany between 1996 and 2011. The extension of the high speed rail network focused on West Germany, while investments in the road networks were predominately occurring in East Germany. In addition, investment in the high speed network in Western neighboring countries primarily affected rail accessibil‐ity in the border regions to France and Belgium. The increase in accessibility via roads did neither cause a significant effect on overall employment or county level employment nor on employment in agglomerations or rural regions. When we regress the change in the number of establishments against changes in road accessibility we find significantly positive accessibility coefficients for all kind of regional definitions. Further analysis indicates that these findings are primarily due to an increase in the number of establishments in East Germany. The sector analysis ac‐counts this to changes in the transport and logistics sector. The most surprising result is that the strong increase in road accessibility in East Ger‐many did not imply an increase in employment. We explain this through two contrasting effects. First, the decline in transport costs raises the attractiveness of the core regions and implies a loss in employment in the periphery (East Germany). Second, internal ac‐cessibility in East Germany increases, too. This might imply internal relocation and em‐ployment benefits from agglomeration effects in East German agglomerations. The core periphery effect seems to be weakened across time. The employment effects of a change in rail accessibility are concentrated in South‐West regions in Germany. These are due to the increase in accessibility of the western EU neighbors. We also see that only West German agglomerations and regions with urbani‐zation trends benefit from higher rail accessibility. We also examine effects on the sector level showing that only a few sectors are affected by changes in accessibilit

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

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