Does high-speed rail generate spillovers on local budgets?

Abstract

Many developed countries have boosted investment into High-Speed Rail (HSR).This infrastructure is costly and requires high investment during the construction and operation periods, which is mainly financed with public funds. This economic effort is seldom set off, which leads to subsidies with the money collected from public debt growth or tax pressure increases. The question that immediately emerges is whether the entrance of this new infrastructure generates spillovers at the local level. In this paper, we answer this question by using local data on economic activity, municipalities' characteristics and local public budgets in Spain for the past decade (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010). To approach to this problem, we use GIS tools and build a database to estimate the impact by considering difference-in-difference analysis. Our estimations yield a general conclusion: when HSR comes to town, both local revenues and the local fiscal gap improve by 10% and 16%, respectively. These improvements primarily affect municipalities located within 5 km of an HSR station.

Selecting an Appropriate Express Railway Pavement System Using VIKOR Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model

“…Strategic studies and the formulation of a general policy, as well as the prioritization of the implementation of high-speed projects, can be useful in making decisions [6]. In order to achieve sustainable economic development, proper use of the factors of production and planning is of particular importance because it increases productivity in the condition in which the country's economy is faced with limited production factors [7].…”

A Mathematical Study of Accessibility and Cohesion Degree in a High-Speed Rail Station Connected to an Urban Bus Transport Network

“…Regarding relative accessibility, it is noteworthy that while the Fulda HSR station ranks in the fourth position out of 249 nodes, and the HSR station in Ulm-Neu Ulm ranks the first position out of 177, the Toledo HSR station and Lleida HSR station rank the eighth position out of 2 . Certainly, the Toledo station rank in relation to its secondary transport network limits accessibility for potential customers and fails to guarantee the sustainability and profitability of the HSR network.…”

“…The newly refurbished or built stations that are to host HSR are conceived as an instrument to decrease travel times dramatically. Consequently, HSR creates great expectations in terms of socio-economic and territorial revitalisation [2]. This fact leads to certain changes in the city, which are enhanced by public administrations in the framework of the pursuit of urban renewal [2].…”

Trading off public values in High-Speed Rail development in China

“…According to estimates made by He Huawu, the academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, every 1 Yuan investment in HSR produces 5.7 Yuan GDP growth, excluding domestic demand for construction materials. 2 In addition, in the academic field, many authors have pointed out that the opening of HSR stations brings enhanced accessibility of urban areas, fosters changes in the land use configuration of the area surrounding the station, and increases the attractiveness of the newly connected location, in a dynamic process that generates multi-level impacts in the local economic, social and physical environments (Cao et al, 2013;Shaw et al, 2014;Wu, 2013;Wu et al, 2014;Shen et al, 2014;Hermandez and Jimenez, 2014). Moreover, economic benefits are also derived from time-savings.…”

“…The consequence of the HSR program is therefore to introduce a new unevenness among corridors. Research on China's HSR impact on regional development shows that cities and regions along HSR lines become relatively closer but others without connections to HSR routes become relatively more distant (Tang et al, 2011;Hermandez and Jimenez, 2014). In the years 2001-2008, there was no railway network expansion in Xinjiang, simply because the budget was used up by the HSR program.…”