Evaluating the transport-mode-specific trade effects of different transport infrastructure types

Abstract

Both qualitative and quantitative improvements for five different transport infrastructure types are evaluated with respect to their transport-mode-specific trade effects. Strong trade increases are found for survey-based quality indicators of airport and railroad infrastructure. For road trade, the road density is more important than the quality of road infrastructure. Additionally, the infrastructure quality of transit countries is an important trade flow driver of the land transport modes road and railroad. For the analysis of these effects, I use a gravity equation model with European trade flows that are disaggregated over five different transport modes. In combination with the quality and quantity indicators for each corresponding type of transport infrastructure, it is possible to directly estimate the unique trade effects for each infrastructure type. Moreover, a novel cross-mode analysis is conducted to estimate interdependencies and cross-effects that exist between different transport infrastructure types and different transport modes.