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A freeway to prosperity? Evidence from Calabria, South of Italy

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  • Ciani, Emanuele
  • de Blasio, Guido
  • Poy, Samuele

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of the freeway “Salerno-Reggio Calabria” on long-term local economic development. Built between 1962 and 1974, the freeway connected the southernmost region of the Italian peninsula (Calabria) to the national highway network. According to the original plan, the freeway could have been built along three different routes. The final choice was mostly influenced by powerful politicians who lobbied in favor of the path crossing their constituency (the town of Cosenza). In a differences-in-differences framework, we compare the growth of “inconsequentially” treated municipalities – traversed only because they lie on the route connecting Cosenza – with the one of municipalities on the two discarded paths. Our results suggest that the freeway caused a significant reorganization of both economic activity and population from untreated to treated locations. At the same time, the infrastructure does not seem to have helped the convergence of the overall region.

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  • Ciani, Emanuele & de Blasio, Guido & Poy, Samuele, 2022. "A freeway to prosperity? Evidence from Calabria, South of Italy," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecotra:v:29:y:2022:i:c:s2212012222000016
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100250
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    Cited by:

    1. Guglielmo Barone & Guido de Blasio & Elena Gentili, 2020. "Politically connected cities: Italy 1951-1991," Working Papers wp1158, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    2. Rocha, Bruno T. & Melo, Patrícia C. & Afonso, Nuno & de Abreu e Silva, João, 2023. "The local impacts of building a large motorway network: Urban growth, suburbanisation, and agglomeration," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Highways; Transport infrastructure; Local development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning

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