The Brasilia Experiment : Road Access and the Spatial Pattern of Long-term Local Development in Brazil
This paper studies the impact of the rapid expansion of the Brazilian road network, which occurred from the 1960s to the 2000s, on the growth and spatial allocation of population and economic activity across the country's municipalities. It ad...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/07/19760007/brasilia-experiment-road-access-spatial-pattern-long-term-local-development-brazil http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19361 |
| Summary: | This paper studies the impact of the
rapid expansion of the Brazilian road network, which
occurred from the 1960s to the 2000s, on the growth and
spatial allocation of population and economic activity
across the country's municipalities. It addresses the
problem of endogeneity in infrastructure location by using
an original empirical strategy, based on the
"historical natural experiment" constituted by the
creation of the new federal capital city Brasília in 1960.
The results reveal a dual pattern, with improved transport
connections increasing concentration of economic activity
and population around the main centers in the South of the
country, while spurring the emergence of secondary economic
centers in the less developed North, in line with
predictions in terms of agglomeration economies. Over the
period, roads are shown to account for half of pcGDP growth
and to spur a significant decrease in spatial inequality. |
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