IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v80y2014icp133-152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Airports and urban sectoral employment

Author

Listed:
  • Sheard, Nicholas

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of airport infrastructure on relative sectoral employment at the metropolitan-area level, using data from the United States. To address the potential endogeneity in the determination of airport sizes, the 1944 National Airport Plan is used to instrument for the current distribution of airports. Airport size is found to have a positive effect on the employment share of tradable services, controlling for overall local employment, but no measurable effect on manufacturing or most non-tradable sectors. The effect of airport size on overall local employment is practically zero, suggesting that airports lead to specialization but not growth at the metropolitan-area level. The implied elasticity of tradable-service employment with respect to airport size is approximately 0.22. The results are relevant to the evaluation of airport construction or improvement projects that aim to benefit the local economy by making travel to and from the metropolitan area more convenient.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheard, Nicholas, 2014. "Airports and urban sectoral employment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 133-152.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:80:y:2014:i:c:p:133-152
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2014.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119014000060
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jue.2014.01.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen J. Redding & Daniel M. Sturm & Nikolaus Wolf, 2011. "History and Industry Location: Evidence from German Airports," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 814-831, August.
    2. Richard K. Green, 2007. "Airports and Economic Development," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 91-112, March.
    3. Jan K. Brueckner, 2003. "Airline Traffic and Urban Economic Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1455-1469, July.
    4. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2616-2652, October.
    5. Clark, Ximena & Dollar, David & Micco, Alejandro, 2004. "Port efficiency, maritime transport costs, and bilateral trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 417-450, December.
    6. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2012. "Urban Growth and Transportation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1407-1440.
    7. Guy Michaels, 2008. "The Effect of Trade on the Demand for Skill: Evidence from the Interstate Highway System," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 683-701, November.
    8. Redding, Stephen & Venables, Anthony J., 2004. "Economic geography and international inequality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82, January.
    9. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Cristea, Anca D., 2012. "Airports and Urban Growth: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Policy Experiment," MPRA Paper 40304, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gilles Duranton & Peter M. Morrow & Matthew A. Turner, 2014. "Roads and Trade: Evidence from the US," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 681-724.
    11. James E. Rauch, 2001. "Business and Social Networks in International Trade," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1177-1203, December.
    12. J. C. D. Blaine, 1954. "The Development of a National Airport Plan," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(3), pages 270-274.
    13. Donaldson, Dave, 2010. "Railroads of the Raj: estimating the impact of transportation infrastructure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Dave Donaldson, 2010. "Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure," NBER Working Papers 16487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Nathaniel Baum-Snow, 2007. "Did Highways Cause Suburbanization?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 775-805.
    16. Cristea, Anca D., 2011. "Buyer-seller relationships in international trade: Evidence from U.S. States' exports and business-class travel," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 207-220, July.
    17. James E. Rauch & Vitor Trindade, 2002. "Ethnic Chinese Networks In International Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 116-130, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Cristea, Anca D., 2015. "Air service and urban growth: Evidence from a quasi-natural policy experiment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 128-146.
    2. Richard Kneller & Danny McGowan, 2019. "The effect of airports on the growth of service exports," Discussion Papers 2019-10, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    3. Bruce A. Blonigen & Anca D. Cristea, 2012. "Airports and Urban Growth: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Policy Experiment," NBER Working Papers 18278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Redding, Stephen J. & Turner, Matthew A., 2015. "Transportation Costs and the Spatial Organization of Economic Activity," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1339-1398, Elsevier.
    5. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2017. "Fly and trade: Evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 51-60.
    6. Rosa Sanchis-Guarner, 2012. "Driving Up Wages: The Effects of Road Construction in Great Britain," SERC Discussion Papers 0120, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Redding, Stephen J., 2016. "Goods trade, factor mobility and welfare," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 148-167.
    8. Nicholas Sheard, 2019. "Airport Size and Urban Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(342), pages 300-335, April.
    9. Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Pantelis Koutroumpis & Tommaso Valletti, 2017. "Speed 2.0: Evaluating Access to Universal Digital Highways," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 586-625.
    10. Volpe Martincus, Christian & Blyde, Juan, 2013. "Shaky roads and trembling exports: Assessing the trade effects of domestic infrastructure using a natural experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 148-161.
    11. Nicholas Sheard, 2015. "Airport Improvements and Urban Growth," Working Papers halshs-01117913, HAL.
    12. Gibbons, Stephen & Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Overman, Henry G. & Sanchis-Guarner, Rosa, 2019. "New road infrastructure: The effects on firms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 35-50.
    13. Redding, Stephen, 2020. "Trade and Geography," CEPR Discussion Papers 15268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Fabien Candau & Elisa Dienesch, 2015. "Spatial distribution of skills and regional trade integration," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(2), pages 451-488, March.
    15. Talebian, Ahmadreza & Zou, Bo & Hansen, Mark, 2018. "Assessing the impacts of state-supported rail services on local population and employment: A California case study," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 108-121.
    16. Nicholas Sheard, 2015. "Airport Improvements and Urban Growth," AMSE Working Papers 1509, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    17. Gilles Duranton & Peter M. Morrow & Matthew A. Turner, 2014. "Roads and Trade: Evidence from the US," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 681-724.
    18. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Edouard Schaal, 2020. "Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1411-1452, July.
    19. Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt & Stephen J. Redding & Daniel M. Sturm & Nikolaus Wolf, 2015. "The Economics of Density: Evidence From the Berlin Wall," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2127-2189, November.
    20. Das, Abhiman & Ghani, Ejaz & Grover, Arti & Kerr, William & Nanda, Ramana, 2024. "JUE insight: Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India’s GQ highway network," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Air travel; Services trade; Transportation infrastructure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:80:y:2014:i:c:p:133-152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.