Economic Impacts of Transportation Investment on Regional Growth: Evidence from a Computable General Equilibrium Model on Japan’s Cross-Prefectural-Border Region

Economic Impacts of Transportation Investment on Regional Growth: Evidence from a Computable General Equilibrium Model on Japan’s Cross-Prefectural-Border Region

This paper proposes and examines the economic impact of infrastructure improvement on the San-En-Nanshin region in the Chubu area of Japan. We develop a single transportation computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for each subregion within the San-En-Nanshin region. The explicit modeling of the transportation infrastructure is defined based on interregional commuting flows and business trips, considering the spatial structure of the San-En-Nanshin economy. A CGE model is integrated with an interregional transportation network model to enhance the framework’s potential for understanding the infrastructure’s role in regional development. To evaluate the economic impact of transportation improvement, we analyze the interrelationship between travel time savings and regional output and income. The economic impact analysis under the CGE framework reveals how transportation facilities and systems affect firm and household behavior and therefore induce changes in the production and consumption of commodities and transportation services. The proposed theoretical model was tested by using data from the 2005 IO tables of each subregion and the 2006 transport flow dataset issued by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism in Japan. As a result, the paper confirms the positive effect of transportation investment on the total output and income of the studied region. Specifically, we found that while economic benefits typically appear in urban areas, rural areas can still potentially benefit from transportation improvement projects.