Economic activity is unevenly distributed within the spatial economy. Transport accessibility is one of the drivers of location decisions by firms and households. Even though transport costs have fallen substantially, the importance of proximity to people and markets has not disappeared and may even have contributed to accentuate the spatial concentration of economic activity, as predicted by New Economic Geography models, increasing spatial inequalities.
One of the major limitations of existing empirical studies is the lack of understanding about the extent to which the observed effects of transport accessibility on the location of economic activity reflect changes in the level of economic activity (i.e. growth) as opposed to a mere spatial reshuffling of existing activity (i.e. spatial reorganization). Transport is one of the largest investments made by governments and is often claimed to have both efficiency and equity benefits by improving economic productivity and regional convergence, respectively. Understanding whether, in contrast, transport investments produce essentially “displacement effects”, and potentially a zero-sum game, is crucial for policy analysis.
The evolution of Portugal’s transport networks is unique in the EU’s context because of the coexistence of the fast construction of a large-scale motorway network in parallel with a dramatic disinvestment in the railway network. Similarly to other southern European countries, road accessibility in Portugal was poor until the 1980s, but it improved massively since the country joined the EU in 1986 and gained access to structural development funds, a large proportion of which were allocated to the construction of motorways. In 1970, there were only 66 km of motorways in Portugal, increasing to 132 km in 1981, 409 km in 1991, 1660 km in 2001, 2737 km in 2011 and 3065 km in 2019. Motorways account for 21% of the road network: one in every five km. In contrast, the rail network shrank due to the closure of several railway lines and the reduction of services in operating lines: the extension of operating lines shrank by 30% between 1970 and 2019. A crucial question is then whether, and how, these dramatic changes in the country’s transport network led to significant changes in the spatial distribution of economic activity, particularly whether they contributed to the creation of new firms and new jobs or rather the spatial reorganization of preexisting activity.
Main Research Questions
The project TASSEL investigates the impacts of transport accessibility on the spatial organization of economic activity by answering the following questions:
To what extent does (des)investment in transport contribute to an increase in spatial inequalities in the distribution of economic activity?
What is the effect of changes in transport accessibility on the spatial patterns of firm births and job creation versus the relocation of preexisting activity from other locations?
Are there differences in the effects of transport accessibility according to the types of transport systems, i.e., investment in motorways vs. disinvestment in rail services?
Dissemination and Outreach
Seminars & Conferences
The effects of motorways on urban sprawl: Evidence for Portugal, Urban sprawl and motorways, 7th Annual Meeting of Political Economy, ISEG, Lisbon, 25-27 January 2024
The effects of motorways on urban sprawl: Evidence for Portugal, 62nd European Regional Science Association (ERSA) Annual Conference, Alicante, Spain, 28 Aug. - 1 Sept. 2023
Features about project published in national media and blogs
Amorim, J., & de Abreu e Silva, J. (2024). Comparing the application of different justice theories in equity analysis of transit projects: A case study of the Lisbon Metro Circular Line. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 17(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2024.1895.
Branco, C., Dohse, D.C., Pereira dos Santos, J., and Tavares, J. (2023). Nobody’s gonna slow me down? The effects of a transportation cost shock on firm performance and behavior. Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 136, 103569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2023.103569.
PhD and MSc theses
PhD - Valentino Salgado Cunha, (in progress), 'The economic effects of rail investment and disinvestment in Portugal', ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa (as main supervisor)
PhD - Mauricio Silva de Carvalho, (in progress), 'Essays on the economic impact of 35 years of road investment in Portugal: Estimating the linkages between transport accessibility, agglomeration externalities and displacement effects', ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa (as main supervisor)
PhD - Nuno Filipe da Silva Afonso, (in progress), 'A vision on the evolution of the Portuguese road-rail networks since the early twentieth century: Analysis of its impacts on land-use patterns' (as co-supervisor)
MSc - Margarida Pessoa Vaz (in progress) 'Motorways, urban spatial structure, and car-based mobility patterns in Portugal between 1991 and 2011', MSc in Economics and Public Policy, ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa