5 Spatial Economic Impacts of Transport Infrastructure Investments JAN OOSTERHAVEN AND THIJS KNAAP

Estimating the spatial economic impacts of transport infrastructure is an unsolved issue that has plagued economic science for a long time. This paper will give an overview of the basic problem, the contributions of the empirical literature, the modelling approaches used until now, a recent application, and a perspective on how to proceed. The basic problem lies in establishing the ‘anti monde’, that is, the economic development that would have occurred without the investment in infrastructure. This basic problem is burdened with uncertainty about the direction of the impact of new transport infrastructure on the regions or nations affected. As infrastructure reduces the cost of both imports and exports of goods and services, the net effect is not clear. Macro economic research only gives indications about the demand and supply effects of bundles of historical investments in infrastructure. This only with considerable debate about the econometrics and the causality implied by the estimations. Moreover, macro research has onl