Policy Research Working Paper | Transport | World Bank

The persistence of (subnational) fortune : geography, agglomeration, and institutions in the new world

2012-09-04T04:00:00.000Z

Using subnational historical data, this paper establishes the within country persistence of economic activity in the New World over the last half millennium. The paper constructs a data set incorporating measures of pre-colonial population density, new measures of present regional per capita income and population, and a comprehensive set of locational fundamentals. These fundamentals are shown to have explanatory power: native populations throughout the hemisphere were found in more livable and productive places. It is then shown that high pre-colonial density areas tend to be dense today: population agglomerations persist. The data and historical evidence suggest this is due partly to locational fundamentals, but also to classic agglomeration effects: colonialists established settlements near existing native populations for reasons of labor, trade, knowledge and defense. Further, high density (historically prosperous) areas also tend to have higher incomes today, and largely due to agglomeration effects: fortune persists for the United States and most of Latin America. Finally extractive institutions, in this case, slavery, reduce persistence even if they do not overwhelm other forces in its favor.

Facilitating international production networks : the role of trade logistics

2012-10-11T04:00:00.000Z

This paper shows that networked trade in parts and components is more sensitive to the importing country's logistics performance than is trade in final goods. In the baseline specification, the difference between the two trade semi-elasticities is around 45 percent, which suggests that the effect is quantitatively important. In addition, the analysis finds that logistics performance is particularly important for trade in the Asia-Pacific region, which is exactly where the emergence of international production networks has been most pronounced over recent years. The results suggest that policymakers can support the development of international production networks by helping improve trade logistics performance.

Introducing behavioral change in transportation into energy/economy/environment models

2012-10-16T04:00:00.000Z

Transportation is vital to economic and social development, but at the same time generates undesired consequences on local, regional, and global scales. One of the largest challenges is the mitigation of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, to which this sector already contributes one-quarter globally and one-third in the United States. Technology measures are the prerequisite for drastically mitigating energy use and all emission species, but they are not sufficient. The resulting need for complementing technology measures with behavioral change policies contrasts sharply with the analyses carried out by virtually all energy / economy / environment (E3) models, given their focus on pure technology-based solutions. This paper addresses the challenges for E3 models to simulate behavioral changes in transportation. A survey of 13 major models concludes that especially hybrid energy models would already be capable of simulating some behavioral change policies, most notably the imposition of the full marginal societal costs of transportation. Another survey of major macroscopic transportation models finds that key specifications required for simulating behavioral change have already been implemented and tested, albeit not necessarily on a global scale. When integrating these key features into E3 models, a wide range of technology and behavioral change policies could be analyzed.

Trade in a 'green growth' development strategy : global scale issues and challenges

2012-10-16T04:00:00.000Z

This paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country's development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs); (ii) 'virtual trade' in emissions resulting from production activities; and (iii) the product mix attributes of a 'green-growth' strategy (environmentally preferable products and goods for environmental management). Trade exacerbates over-exploitation of natural resources in weak institutional environments, but there is little evidence that differences in environmental policies across countries has led to significant 'pollution havens.' Trade policies to 'level the playing field' would be ineffective and result in destructive conflicts in the World Trade Organization. Lack of progress at the Doha Round suggests the need to modify the current system of global policy making.

Tools for assessing the costs and benefits of green growth : the U.S. and Mexico

2012-10-17T04:00:00.000Z

This paper examines the processes used in the United States and Mexico to assess the economic costs and benefits of environmental improvement, the kinds of information obtained from these procedures, and the additional knowledge that is needed about both elements to improve understanding of the problems and prospects of advancing a green growth agenda. Because environmental and other development needs are large and resources are limited, it is important to choose the best projects, those with the highest returns on both public investments and private resources harnessed by regulation. The United States is well-established as a world leader in the use of quantitative methods to evaluate options for environmental regulation and policy. Mexico represents a case where a developing country has made clear advances in reforming its economy and in introducing transparency in its regulatory processes for environmental and other policy areas.

Income risk, income mobility and welfare

2012-10-31T04:00:00.000Z

This paper develops a framework for the quantitative analysis of individual income dynamics, mobility and welfare. Individual income is assumed to follow a stochastic process with two (unobserved) components, component representing measurement error or transitory income shocks and an Autoregressive (AR(1)) component representing persistent changes in income. The analysis uses a tractable consumption-saving model with labor income risk and incomplete markets to relate income dynamics to consumption and welfare, and derive analytical expressions for income mobility and welfare as a function of the various parameters of the underlying income process. The empirical application of the framework using data on individual incomes from Mexico provides striking results. Much of measured income mobility is driven by measurement error or transitory income shocks and therefore (almost) welfare-neutral. A smaller part of measured income mobility is due to either welfare-reducing income risk or welfare-enhancing catching-up of low-income individuals with high-income individuals, both of which have economically significant effects on social welfare. Decomposing mobility into its fundamental components is thus seen to be crucial from the standpoint of welfare evaluation.

The cost structure of the clean development mechanism

2012-11-13T05:00:00.000Z

This paper examines the cost of producing emission reduction credits under the Clean Development Mechanism. Using project-specific data, cost functions are estimated using alternative functional forms. The results show that, in general, the distribution of projects in the pipeline does not correspond exclusively to the cost of generating anticipated credits. Rather, investment choices appear to be influenced by location and project type considerations in a way that is consistent with variable transaction costs and investor preferences among hosts and classes of projects. This implies that comparative advantage based on the marginal cost of abatement is only one of several factors driving Clean Development Mechanism investments. This is significant since much of the conceptual and applied numerical literature concerning greenhouse gas mitigation policies relies on presumptions about relative abatement costs. The authors also find that Clean Development Mechanism projects generally exhibit constant or increasing returns to scale. In contrast, they find variations among classes of projects concerning economies of time.

Networks, firms, and trade

2012-11-28T05:00:00.000Z

Fixed costs associated with learning about demand and setting up distribution networks are expected to be lower when there are more potential contacts in the destination market, suggesting a greater probability of market entry and larger export revenues. The authors match historically-determined emigration stocks with detailed firm-level data from Portugal to examine the effect of migrant networks on these export outcomes. They find that larger stocks of emigrants in a given destination increase export participation and intensity. In addition, they show that the former of these effects tends to be more pronounced among firms that are more likely to have close ties with the emigrants. These results are consistent with a multiple-destination version of the Melitz (2003) model featuring market-specific entry costs and idiosyncratic firm-destination demand shocks.

Incomplete, slow, and asymmetric price transmission in ten product markets of Bolivia

2012-12-12T05:00:00.000Z

With food prices on the rise, understanding the transmission of price shocks, both internationally and domestically, is central for trade policy analysis. This paper examines spatial market integration and its determinants for ten key food products in Bolivia, across the four most important cities, and with the world, over the period 1991-2008. Within Bolivia, markets for onions, chicken, sugar, and to a lower extent for potatoes, cooking oil, wheat flour, and rice are integrated. However, only chicken, sugar, cooking oil, and rice are integrated with world markets, with incomplete and slow transmission. The perennial result of asymmetric price adjustment to foreign shocks also holds for Bolivia: domestic prices respond faster when the world price increases than when it decreases. This points to a perennial recommendation: the importance of stimulating competitive practices to avoid welfare redistribution due to imperfect competition. Infrastructure improvements will also contribute to accessible food prices for the poor.

Rethinking the form and function of cities in post-Soviet countries

2012-12-12T05:00:00.000Z

Eurasian cities, unique in the global spatial landscape, were part of the world's largest experiment in urban development. The challenges they now face because of their history offer valuable lessons to urban planners and policymakers across the world from places that are still urbanizing to those already urbanized. Today, Eurasian cities must respond to three big changes: the breakup of the Soviet Union, the return of the market as the driving force of society, and the emergence of regional powers such as the European Union, China, and India that are competing with the Russian Federation for markets and influence in its former satellites. Several methods of analysis indicate an imbalance across Eurasia, implying a need to readjust Eurasia's urban structure. National policies in Eurasia are still preoccupied with spatial equity. But the concentration of economic activity in large cities is fundamental to national competitive advantage: they foster innovation through their diversity of industries -- and reduce production costs through their economies of scale. This paper suggests some ideas on how policymakers can harness the economic power of cities to drive national economic development, by focusing on four themes: planning, connecting, greening, and financing cities.

Highway to success in India : the impact of the golden quadrilateral project for the location and performance of manufacturing

2013-01-17T05:00:00.000Z

The infrastructure gap is one of the most significant impediments to India realizing its growth and poverty reduction potential. Although Indias transport network is one of the most extensive in the world, accessibility and connectivity are limited. Only 20 percent of the national highway network (which carries 40 percent of traffic) is four-lane and one-fourth of the rural population does not have access to an all-weather road. It is estimated that the transport sector alone will require an investment of nearly US$500 billion over the next 10 years. This paper investigates the impact of the Golden Quadrilateral highway project on the Indian organized manufacturing sector using enterprise data. The Golden Quadrilateral project upgraded the quality and width of 5,846 km of roads in India. The analysis uses a difference-in-difference estimation strategy to compare non-nodal districts based on their distance from the highway system. It finds several positive effects for non-nodal districts located 0-10 km from the Golden Quadrilateral that are not present in districts 10-50 km away, most notably higher entry rates and increases in plant productivity. These results are not present for districts located on another major highway system, the North-South East-West corridor. Improvements for portions of the North-South East-West corridor system were planned to occur at the same time as the Golden Quadrilateral but were subsequently delayed. Additional tests show that the Golden Quadrilateral projects effect operates in part through a stronger sorting of land-intensive industries from nodal districts to non-nodal districts located on the Golden Quadrilateral network. The Golden Quadrilateral upgrades further helped spread economic activity to moderate-density districts and intermediate size cities.

How is the liberalization of food markets progressing ? market integration and transaction costs in subsistence economies

2013-01-22T05:00:00.000Z

The paper proposes a modification of Baulch's parity bounds model to measure the market integration of food markets in developing countries. Instead of extrapolating a single observation of transaction costs, it estimates transaction costs. Predicted transaction costs compare well with survey data of traders. Probabilities of market regimes, computed on the basis of predicted transaction costs, fluctuate significantly and do not support fixed regime probabilities over time. The probability of market integration with trade decreases consistently during food shortages, increasing either the probability of no trade or loss-making trade or the probability of profitable but unexploited trade opportunities. The data support a negative trend in market integration with trade.

Trade dimensions of logistics services : a proposal for trade agreements

2013-01-23T05:00:00.000Z

Services have a direct impact on the competitiveness of the goods sector. This paper illustrates the importance of logistics services, their trade dimension, and how regulatory issues act as perhaps one of the most significant barriers to competitiveness. The paper discusses recent developments and the role and benefits of logistics services and argues that from a trade agreement standpoint, logistics is a network industry that ultimately provides one service to a final client. It analyzes logistics services from a services trade perspective and proposes that trade agreements should ensure access to and use of the infrastructure required to provide these services recognizing their interconnectedness. The paper offers suggestions on additional policies World Trade Organization members, and countries negotiating services agreements regionally or bilaterally, could follow in order to fully exploit the opportunities provided by logistics services. Local regulations and complementary policies in areas such as trade facilitation will always remain important.

Integrating gravity: the role of scale invariance in gravity models of spatial interactions and trade

2013-01-31T05:00:00.000Z

This paper revisits the ubiquitous bi-proportional gravity model and investigates the reasons why different theoretical frameworks may lead to the same empirical formula. The generic gravity equation possesses scale invariance symmetries that constrain possible theoretical explanations based on optimal allocation principles, such as neoclassical or probabilistic frameworks. These constraints imply that a representative consumer's utilities must be separable, and that an entropy model is the only consistent maximum likelihood allocation of a matrix of flows between origin and destination. The paper explores the feasibility of wider classes of non-scale invariant gravity equations, where gravity is no longer bi-proportional by including nonlinear interactions between trade costs and fundamental country factors such as economic size. It shows that such extensions are feasible but that they do not result in a significant improvement in the explanatory power of the empirical analysis.

Service sector reform and manufacturing productivity : evidence from Indonesia

2013-01-31T05:00:00.000Z

This paper examines the extent to which policy restrictions on foreign direct investment in the Indonesian service sector affected the performance of manufacturers over the period 1997-2009. It uses firm-level data on manufacturers' total factor productivity and the OECD's foreign direct investment Regulatory Restrictiveness Index, combined with data from Indonesias input-output tables regarding the intensity with which manufacturing sectors use services inputs. Controlling for firm-level fixed effects and other relevant policy indicators, it finds, first, that relaxing policies toward foreign direct investment in the service sector was associated with improvements in perceived performance of the service sector. Second, it finds that this relaxation in service sector foreign direct investment policies accounted for 8 percent of the observed increase in manufacturers' total factor productivity over the period. The total factor productivity gains accrue disproportionately to those firms that are relatively more productive, and that gains are related to the relaxation of restrictions in both the transport and electricity, gas, and water sectors. Total factor productivity gains are associated, in particular, with the relaxation of foreign equity limits, screening, and prior approval requirements, but less so with discriminatory regulations that prevent multinationals from hiring key personnel abroad.

Political economy aspects of fuel subsidies : a conceptual framework

2013-03-27T04:00:00.000Z

While notoriously inefficient, fuel subsidies are widespread, and in many cases politically stable. This paper discusses and models various political economy aspects of fuel subsidies, focusing on gasoline and kerosene. Both economic and political are considered to explain differences in subsidies, with particular focus on democratic and autocratic governments. A political process is modeled whereby a promise of low fuel prices is used in democracies to attract voters, and in autocracies to mobilize support among key groups. Subsidies to fuels are viewed as either easier to observe, easier to commit to, easier to deliver, or better targeted at core groups, than other public goods or favors offered by rulers. Easier commitment and delivery than for regular public goods can explain the high prevalence of such policies in autocracies, and also in young democracies where the capacity to commit to or deliver complex public goods is not yet fully developed. The analysis provides a framework for empirical testing and verification.

Petroleum product pricing and complementary policies: experience of 65 developing countries since 2009

2013-04-01T04:00:00.000Z

Unable to cope fully with steadily climbing world oil prices since mid-2009, many of the 65 countries reviewed in this paper have progressed slowly or even reversed course in reforming pricing of petroleum products. End-user prices in July 2012 varied by two orders of magnitude across the countries. More than two-fifths, including some that had only recently adopted automatic pricing mechanisms, froze the prices of gasoline, diesel, or both for months or even years on end during the study period. When the prices were finally adjusted, the increases were sometimes substantial, leading to large-scale protests, partial or full reversals of price adjustments, or softening of pricing reform policy. Governments' attempts to keep domestic prices artificially low -- through price control, export or quantity restrictions, or political pressure put on oil companies -- have helped curb inflation in the short term, but frequently with serious negative consequences: flourishing black markets, smuggling, fuel adulteration, illegal diversion of subsidy funds, large financial losses suffered by fuel suppliers, deteriorating refining and other infrastructure, and acute fuel shortages causing economy-wide damage. In several countries, subsidies, price controls, and other restrictions have helped protect inefficient refineries and oil marketers. Mitigation responses have included fuel conservation programs; fuel diversification, particularly liquid biofuels to substitute gasoline and diesel; and efforts to lower costs of supply, including strengthening infrastructure, promoting price competition, hedging, negotiating price discounts with exporters, and bulk procurement. Various forms of assistance to consumers have also been offered, especially to households, agriculture, transport, and fisheries.

Energy intensive infrastructure investments with retrofits in continuous time : effects of uncertainty on energy use and carbon emissions

2013-04-30T04:00:00.000Z

Energy-intensive infrastructure may tie up fossil energy use and carbon emissions for a long time after investments, making the structure of such investments crucial for society. Much or most of the resulting carbon emissions can often be eliminated later, through a costly retrofit. This paper studies the simultaneous decision to invest in such infrastructure, and retrofit it later, in a model where future climate damages are uncertain and follow a geometric Brownian motion process with positive drift. It shows that greater uncertainty about climate cost (for given unconditional expected costs) then delays the retrofit decision by increasing the option value of waiting to invest. Higher energy intensity is also chosen for the initial infrastructure when uncertainty is greater. These decisions are efficient given that energy and carbon prices facing the decision maker are (globally) correct, but inefficient when they are lower, which is more typical. Greater uncertainty about future climate costs will then further increase lifetime carbon emissions from the infrastructure, related both to initial investments, and to too infrequent retrofits when this emissions level is already too high. An initially excessive climate gas emissions level is then likely to be worsened when volatility increases.

Services linkages and the value added content of trade

2013-05-01T04:00:00.000Z

Services trade constitute roughly one-third of trade on a value added basis, and much of this is concentrated in margin services (transport, logistics) linked to trade in goods. However, producer services are also part of the value added contained in traded goods. This is especially true in high income countries, where services account for roughly 70 percent of value added. Working with data (a set of global social accounting matrices spanning intermittent years from 1992 to 2007) this paper examines the services embodied in trade on a value added basis. This includes not only the direct and indirect contribution of services to value added contained in a given countrys exports, but also the extent to which third-country value added in services, through intermediate linkages of imported goods and services, are also embodied in production and trade. This exercise serves to highlight not only the importance of non-tradables in trade, but also by extension the importance that productivity, foreign affiliates sales, and trade and investment in services may hold for interdependence and cross-border linkages.

Farther on down the road : transport costs, trade and urban growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

2013-05-15T04:00:00.000Z

Transport costs are widely considered an important barrier to local economic activity but their impact in developing countries is not well-studied. This paper investigates the role of inter-city transport costs in determining the income of Sub-Saharan African cities, using two new data sources. Specifically, it asks how important access to a large port city is for the income of hinterland cities in 15 countries. Satellite data on lights at night proxy for city economic activity, and shortest routes between cities are calculated using new road network data. Cost per unit of distance is identified by world oil prices. The results show that an oil price increase of the magnitude experienced between 2002 and 2008 induces the income of cities near a major port to increase by 6 percent relative to otherwise identical cities 500 kilometers farther away. Cities connected to the port by paved roads are chiefly affected by transport costs to the port, while cities connected to the port by unpaved roads are more affected by connections to secondary centers. These are important findings for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa since the majority of its population growth over the next few decades is expected to be in urban areas.