IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/nasm04/561.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Economy of Infrastructure Investment: A Spatial Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Kieron Meagher
  • Arghya Ghosh

Abstract

The importance of infrastructure for growth is well established in the macroeconomic literature. Previous research has treated public investment in infrastructure as exogenous. We remedy this shortcoming by providing a political economy analysis of infrastructure choice based upon consumer preferences derived from spatial competition models. The transport cost parameter providesa natural index of infrastructure in these models. In this setting, infrastructure investment has two possible effects: to directly lower transaction costs and indirectly to affect market power. We begin with a single marketplace model in which only the direct effect is present and then bring in the indirect effect by extending the analysis to competition on the circle. Analysis of market structure, consumer participation, entry and transport cost curvature give a rich variety of results. Socially optimal outcomes occur in some cases but infrastructure traps are common. Our results suggest that in less developed countries competition enhancing policies are a key prerequisite for public support of infrastructure investment

Suggested Citation

  • Kieron Meagher & Arghya Ghosh, 2004. "Political Economy of Infrastructure Investment: A Spatial Approach," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 561, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:nasm04:561
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.org/esNASM04/up.1242.1075597859.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lars-Hendrik Roller & Leonard Waverman, 2001. "Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: A Simultaneous Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 909-923, September.
    2. Neven, Damien J., 1986. "On Hotelling's competition with non-uniform customer distributions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 121-126.
    3. Ross, Thomas W., 1992. "Cartel stability and product differentiation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, March.
    4. Anderson, S., 1986. "Equilibrium existence in the linear model of spatial competition," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1986013, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    5. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Social Choice: A Mean Voter Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23, January.
    6. John G. Fernald, 1999. "Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 619-638, June.
    7. Bester, Helmut & de Palma, Andre & Leininger, Wolfgang & Thomas, Jonathan & von Thadden, Ernst-Ludwig, 1996. "A Noncooperative Analysis of Hotelling's Location Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 165-186, February.
    8. d'Aspremont, C & Gabszewicz, Jean Jaskold & Thisse, J-F, 1979. "On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1145-1150, September.
    9. Tabuchi, Takatoshi & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1995. "Asymmetric equilibria in spatial competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 213-227.
    10. Anderson, Simon P. & Goeree, Jacob K. & Ramer, Roald, 1997. "Location, Location, Location," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 102-127, November.
    11. repec:bla:econom:v:55:y:1988:i:220:p:479-91 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    13. Osborne, Martin J & Pitchik, Carolyn, 1986. "The Nature of Equilibrium in a Location Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 223-237, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Yijia & Cheng, Lu, 2023. "The role of transport infrastructure in economic growth: Empirical evidence in the UK," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 223-233.
    2. Alberto Nucciarelli & Massimo Gastaldi & Nathan Levialdi, 2010. "Asymmetric competition and collection rates differentials: determinants of prices in international telephone service markets," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 315-329, October.
    3. Felbermayr, Gabriel J. & Tarasov, Alexander, 2022. "Trade and the spatial distribution of transport infrastructure," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    4. Xinye Zheng & Feng Song & Yihua Yu & Shunfeng Song, 2015. "In Search of Fiscal Interactions: A Spatial Analysis of Chinese Provincial Infrastructure Spending," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 860-876, November.
    5. Christiaan Hogendorn & Brett Frischmann, 2020. "Infrastructure and general purpose technologies: a technology flow framework," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 469-488, December.

    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. Barigozzi, Francesca & Ma, Ching-to Albert, 2018. "Product differentiation with multiple qualities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 380-412.
    2. Drezner, Zvi & Eiselt, H.A., 2024. "Competitive location models: A review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 316(1), pages 5-18.
    3. G. Bertuzzi & L. Lambertini, 2001. "Advertising in a Differential Game of Spatial Competition," Working Papers 400, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Bertuzzi, Giorgia & Lambertini, Luca, 2010. "Existence of equilibrium in a differential game of spatial competition with advertising," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2-3), pages 155-160, May.
    5. Brekke, Kurt R. & Straume, Odd Rune, 2004. "Bilateral monopolies and location choice," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 275-288, May.
    6. Auer, Raphael A. & Sauré, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-205.
    7. L. Lambertini, 2001. "Dynamic Hotelling Duopoly with Linear Transportation Costs," Working Papers 398, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Hehenkamp, Burkhard & Wambach, Achim, 2010. "Survival at the center--The stability of minimum differentiation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 853-858, December.
    9. Reisinger, Markus, 2004. "The Effects of Product Bundling in Duopoly," Discussion Papers in Economics 477, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Hong Feng & Jie Ma, 2018. "Location choices and third‐degree spatial price discrimination," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(2), pages 142-153, May.
    11. Anderson, Simon P. & Goeree, Jacob K. & Ramer, Roald, 1997. "Location, Location, Location," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 102-127, November.
    12. Eleftherios Zacharias, 2013. "Strategic Positioning of Goods in a Market with a Niche," Working Paper series 36_13, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    13. Corrado Benassi & Alessandra Chirco, 2008. "An elasticity approach to equilibrium and preference concentration in the Hotelling game," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 125-141, July.
    14. Heijnen, Pim & Soetevent, Adriaan R., 2018. "Price competition on graphs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 161-179.
    15. Gu Yiquan & Wenzel Tobias, 2012. "Price-Dependent Demand in Spatial Models," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, March.
    16. Gaëtan Fournier & Marco Scarsini, 2014. "Hotelling Games on Networks: Efficiency of Equilibria," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14033, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Zhou, Yanju & Che, Yuan, 2021. "Research on Government Logistics Subsidies for Poverty Alleviation with Non-uniform Distribution of Consumers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    18. Irmen, Andreas & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1998. "Competition in Multi-characteristics Spaces: Hotelling Was Almost Right," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 76-102, January.
    19. Ralph Braid, 2013. "The locations of firms on intersecting roadways," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(3), pages 791-808, June.
    20. Eveline Leeuwen & Mark Lijesen, 2016. "Agents playing Hotelling’s game: an agent-based approach to a game theoretic model," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 57(2), pages 393-411, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecm:nasm04:561. 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    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.