Market Potential, Road Accessibility, and Firm Births: Evidence From 20 Years of Road Investment

IF 2.7 3区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Journal of Regional Science Pub Date : 2025-04-21 DOI:10.1111/jors.12770

Mauricio S. de Carvalho, Patrícia C. Melo, Bruno T. Rocha, Isabel Proença, João de Abreu e Silva

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Abstract

This paper investigates the causal effects of road accessibility, measured by market potential, on firm births in Portuguese municipalities between 1991 and 2016, a period marked by significant road improvements. We address the endogeneity of market potential by employing instrumental variables within Poisson Pseudo-maximum Likelihood estimates with fixed effects, which we refer to as “non-local time-variant historical instruments.” Our estimated elasticities for firm births range from 1.6 to 1.9 for the 1-year interval and 1.2–1.3 for the 5-year interval. Additionally, we find a greater positive effect on firm births when excluding the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, which is indicative evidence of a heterogeneous spatial effect. We also find that the impact of the enlarged market potential is heterogeneous across sectors. Our results are robust to changes in model specification and the usage of alternative measures of the instruments.

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市场潜力、道路可达性和企业诞生：来自20年道路投资的证据

本文调查了1991年至2016年间葡萄牙城市道路可达性（以市场潜力衡量）对企业出生率的因果影响，这一时期的道路状况得到了显著改善。我们通过使用固定效应的泊松伪极大似然估计中的工具变量来解决市场潜力的内生性问题，我们将其称为“非局部时变历史工具”。我们估计的企业出生率弹性在1年区间为1.6 - 1.9,5年区间为1.2-1.3。此外，当排除里斯本和波尔图的大都市地区时，我们发现对企业出生率的积极影响更大，这是异质性空间效应的指示性证据。我们还发现，市场潜力扩大对各行业的影响是不均匀的。我们的结果对模型规格的变化和仪器的替代措施的使用是稳健的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Regional Science Multiple-

CiteScore

4.90

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Regional Science (JRS) publishes original analytical research at the intersection of economics and quantitative geography. Since 1958, the JRS has published leading contributions to urban and regional thought including rigorous methodological contributions and seminal theoretical pieces. The JRS is one of the most highly cited journals in urban and regional research, planning, geography, and the environment. The JRS publishes work that advances our understanding of the geographic dimensions of urban and regional economies, human settlements, and policies related to cities and regions.