We develop a methodology to accurately compute transport costs. Based on the real transport network, our measure encompasses the characteristics of infrastructure, vehicle and energy used, as well as labor, insurance, tax and general charges borne by transport carriers. Computed for the 341 French employment areas, road transport shipments and the period 1978--1998, this new measure is compared to alternative ones such as great circle distance, real distance, or real time. We conclude that these proxies do a very good job in capturing transport costs in cross-section analysis. However, important discrepancies limit the possibility of using them in time series analysis. Moreover, our measure allows us to identify the policies that most impact transport costs. We show that transport technology and market structure are responsible for most of the transport cost decrease. Infrastructure improvements only condition the spatial distribution of the gains. Finally, some implications for researchers and regional policy makers are derived. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Contact details of provider: Postal: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK Fax: 01865 267 985 Email: Web page: http://joeg.oxfordjournals.org/
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)