Relative improvements in road mobility compared to improvements in road accessibility, urbanization and economic growth
Roads can be classified according to their level of mobility and accessibility. Roads with higher mobility (i.e. motorways) provide limited access but largely uninterrupted travel with high speeds, thus improving travel time reliability for transporting people and goods. Roads with higher accessi...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/83139/1/FK%202019%2068%20-%20ir.pdf |
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| Summary: | Roads can be classified according to their level of mobility and accessibility. Roads
with higher mobility (i.e. motorways) provide limited access but largely uninterrupted
travel with high speeds, thus improving travel time reliability for transporting people
and goods. Roads with higher accessibility (i.e. local roads) provide limited mobility
but offer more direct routes to specific destinations, generating potential for human
interactions and opportunity for socioeconomic activities. Empirical studies indicated
that an increase in road length contributed positively to socioeconomic growth.
However, an important missing information from previous studies remain in the
literatures, which is, what type of roads (either high mobility or high accessibility
roads) are needed during different level of country’s development? In order to evaluate the performance of different road types during different level of
country’s development, the relative improvements in road mobility compared to
improvements in road accessibility (MPA) was computed to evaluate the relationship
between MPA and country’s development and the presence of trend changes. Three
empirical investigations were conducted and the research objectives are as follows: (1)
to evaluate how MPA facilitates export-led growth processes and to determine the
investment level needed for different road types to facilitate economic and commercial
activities at different developmental levels, (2) to determine the investment level
required for different road types in order to facilitate urbanization at different levels
of urbanization and to comprehend how the development of MPA promotes exportled
urban growth and (3) to assess the indirect effect of MPA on economic growth
transmitted through the impacts of MPA on urbanization and exports. To shed light
on the above issues, fixed-effects panel linear regression analysis was conducted using
time-series cross-sectional data on the MPA and growth data for 60 countries over the
period of 31 years, from 1980 to 2010. This first empirical study divided the countries into three groups: (1) countries with a
high level of development, (2) countries with a medium level of development and (3)
countries with a low level of development. The key finding of this study was that a
greater relative improvement in MPA would facilitate export-led growth in countries
with a high and medium level of development. This indicates that policy to promote
export and high mobility road network expansion should be carried out hand-in-hand
to enhance economic growth. This is specifically true for countries with a medium
level of development, as these countries generally suffer from lower levels of high
mobility road network development. Such expansion in road mobility is necessary to
fulfil demands for long-distance travel and enable the transportation of people and
goods across regions, thereby facilitating productivity and trade. On the other hand, in
countries with a low level of development, more investment is required to build roads
with high accessibility. Such road are needed to facilitate local business and trade
activities. This is crucial in order to achieve a sustainable economic growth. The second empirical study examine the effect of MPA on urbanization. The evidence
presented in this study suggests that improvements in road mobility promoted exportled
urban growth in countries with a low level of urbanization. This implies that
policies to facilitate export should be executed in conjunction with high mobility road
network expansion to increase urbanization, especially in countries with a low level
of urbanization that commonly suffer from low growth rates and that have a low level
of high mobility road networks. Such expansion in road mobility is required to fulfil
demands for long-distance travel to transport people from rural to urban areas. In
contrast, in countries with a high level of urbanization, more investment is needed to
develop roads with high accessibility. Such roads are needed to fulfil daily travel
demands as a consequence of urban sprawl and decentralization of employment and
populations. Moreover, the evidence shows that per capita education level and
physical capital stock per worker contributed to urbanization. The third empirical study examine the indirect effects MPA on economic growth,
transmitted through the effects of MPA on urbanization and exports. The total effects
of MPA on economic growth is computed by adding the two indirect effects. The
indirect effects of MPA on economic growth were estimated based on the prediction
of three different panel models: the first model relates per capita gross domestic
product (GDP) with urbanization and exports, the second model associates
urbanization with the MPA and the third model links exports with the MPA. The
estimated results imply that the growth in MPA appeared to be associated with a rise
in per capita GDP at lower level of urbanization and export but associated with a
decline in per capita GDP at higher level of urbanization and export. On the other hand,
for the indirect effect of MPA on per capita GDP via urbanization, the level of MPA
that maximizes per capita GDP decreases with increases in the levels of physical
capital stock per worker and per capita education level. For the computation of total
effect, the level of MPA that maximizes per capita GDP is ranged between 0.0485 and
0.5860. In summary, this study suggest that policies focused on improving MPA
should be implemented hand-in hand with other socioeconomic and urbanization
policies, in order to realize a sustainable economic growth. As evidenced by empirical studies conducted in this research, high mobility road
network growth alone is not sufficient to put urbanization and economy on a
sustainable growth path. Although improvements in road mobility are crucial in
countries with a high and medium level of development, improved road accessibility
has a greater influence on export growth in countries with a low level of development.
The latter can be explained as follows: at lower development levels, populations are
more concentrated in smaller areas, and business activities mainly occur at the local
scale. Moreover, the findings also revealed that high road accessibility has a more
important impact on export growth at a high level of urbanization to support daily
travel needs as a result of urban sprawl and the decentralization of employment and
population.
The empirical evidence indicates that the effect of relative improvements in road
mobility was ambiguous, with both positive and negative effects on economic growth
observed. Relative improvements in road mobility appear to be accompanied by an
increase in per capita GDP at lower levels of urbanization and exports but
accompanied by a decrease in per capita GDP at higher levels of urbanization and
exports. Therefore, to attain sustainable economic growth, road infrastructure
development policies should be implemented alongside exports and urbanization
policies.
In this research, most of the countries with a low level of development in the sample
also had a low level of urbanization. The evidence indicates that in countries with a
low level of development, improvements in high accessibility road network promote
local business and trade activities. Furthermore, in countries with a low level of
urbanization, improvements in high mobility road network facilitate migration from
rural to urban areas. Therefore, achieving a balance road infrastructure development
between both high mobility and high accessibility road network is crucial to attain
sustainable economic and urbanization in countries with a low level of urbanization. |
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