Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage and Transport Costs

Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage and Transport Costs
Author: Nuno Limão
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 48
Release: 1999
Genre: Africa
ISBN:

"The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy. Halving transport costs increases that trade volume by a factor of five. Improving the standard of infrastructure from that of the bottom quarter of countries to that of the median country increases trade by 50 percent. Improving infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is especially important for increasing African trade"--Cover.

Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage, and Transport Costs

Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage, and Transport Costs
Author: Nuno Limão
Publisher:
Total Pages: 41
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy. Halving transport costs increases that trade volume by a factor of five. Improving the standard of infrastructure from that of the bottom quarter of countries to that of the median country increases trade by 50 percent. Improving infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is especially important for increasing African trade.Limao and Venables use three different data sets to investigate how transport depends on geography and infrastructure. Landlocked countries have high transport costs, which can be substantially reduced by improving the quality of their infrastructure and that of transit countries.Analysis of bilateral trade data confirms the importance of infrastructure. Limatilde;o and Venables estimate the elasticity of trade flows with regard to transport costs to be high, at about -2.5. This means that:middot; The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy.middot; Halving transport costs increases the volume of trade by a factor of five.middot; Improving infrastructure from the 75th to the 50th percentile increases trade by 50 percent.Using their results and a basic gravity model to study Sub-Saharan African trade, both internally and with the rest of the world, Limao and Venables find that infrastructure problems largely explain the relatively low levels of African trade.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to investigate the effects of geography on economic performance. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

Infrastructure?s Role in Lowering Asia?s Trade Costs

Infrastructure?s Role in Lowering Asia?s Trade Costs
Author: Douglas H. Brooks
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2009-01-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1781953279

Much of the analysis of infrastructure's impact on trade costs focuses on conditions in developed countries. This book makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding by examining the situation in developing Asia, the world's most populous and fastest growing region. This study analyzes and draws policy implications from infrastructure's central role in lowering Asia's trade costs. Infrastructure is shown to be a cost-effective means of lowering trade costs and thereby promoting regional growth and integration. This book combines thematic and country studies, while breaking new ground in.

Handbook of International Trade and Transportation

Handbook of International Trade and Transportation
Author: Bruce A. Blonigen
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 719
Release: 2018-01-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1785366157

International trade has grown rapidly over the past half century, accommodated by the transportation industry through concomitant growth and technological change. But while the connection between transport and trade flows is clear, the academic literature often looks at these two issues separately. This Handbook is unique in pulling together the key insights of each field while highlighting what we know about their intersection and ideas for future research in this relatively unexamined but growing area of study.

The Geography of Transport Systems

The Geography of Transport Systems
Author: Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1136777326

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.

Infrastructure in Africa

Infrastructure in Africa
Author: Ncube, Mthuli
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 722
Release: 2017-03-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1447326652

Good infrastructure is essential for socio-economic growth and sustainable development. Safe and accessible water supplies, reliable energy, good transport networks and communications technology are all vital to a region’s development agenda. This book presents a comprehensive exploration of the state of infrastructure in Africa and provides an integrated analysis of the challenges the sector faces, based on extensive fieldwork across the continent. Contributors with a wide range of expertise challenge current policy, practice and thinking on issues including the politics of infrastructure development, social inclusion, domestic resource mobilisation and infrastructure financing. The book will be an important resource for academic researchers, students and early career development professionals as well as policymakers and NGOs engaged in dialoguing the infrastructure development options for Africa.

Transport Prices and Costs in Africa

Transport Prices and Costs in Africa
Author: Supee Teravaninthorn
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2009
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 0821376551

Transport prices for most African landlocked countries range from 15 to 20 percent of import costs. This is approximately two to three times more than in most developed countries. It is well known that weak infrastructure can account for low trade performance. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand what types of regional transport services operate in landlocked African nations and it is critical to identify the regulation disparities and provision anomalies that hurt infrastructure efficiency, even when the physical infrastructure, such as a road transport corridor, exists. Transport Prices and Costs in Africa analyzes the various reasons for poor transport performance seen widely throughout Africa and provides a compelling case for a number of national and regional reforms that are vital to the effort to address the underlying causes of high transport prices and costs and service unpredictability seen in Africa. The book will greatly help supervisory authorities throughout the region develop and implement a comprehensive transport policy that will facilitate long-term growth.

The Geography of Transport Systems

The Geography of Transport Systems
Author: Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1000061582

This expanded and revised fifth edition of The Geography of Transport Systems provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field with a broad overview of its concepts, methods and areas of application. Aimed mainly at an undergraduate audience, it provides an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation and focuses on how the mobility of passengers and freight is linked with geography. The book is divided into ten chapters, each covering a specific conceptual dimension, including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts, and updated with the latest information available. The fifth edition offer new and updated material on information technologies and mobility, e-commerce, transport and the economy, mobility and society, supply chains, security, pandemics, energy and the environment and climate change. With over 140 updated figures and maps, The Geography of Transport Systems presents transportation systems at different scales ranging from global to local. This volume is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interested in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering. A companion web site, which contains additional material such as photographs, maps, figures and PowerPoint presentations, has been developed for the book and can be found here: https://transportgeography.org/

On the Geography of Trade

On the Geography of Trade
Author: Celine Carrere
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

It has been widely argued that, with the decline in trade costs (for example, transport and communication costs), the importance of distance has declined over time. If so, this would be a boon for countries located far from the main centers of economic activity. The authors examine the evolution of countries' distance of trade (DOT) from 1962-2000. They find that the DOT falls over time for the average country in the world, and that the number of countries with declining DOT is close to double those with increasing DOT. Thus, distance has become more important over time for a majority of countries. The authors examine various hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. One conclusion is that the evolution of the DOT is unrelated to that of the overall trade costs but depends on the relative evolution of its components. The authors also examine the impact on the DOT of changes in production, customs, and domestic transport costs; air relative to land and ocean transport costs; competition, exchange rate policy, regional integration, uneven growth, and counter-season trade; and just-in-time inventory management. An interesting finding is that, though regional integration has a negative impact on the DOT, the countries forming trade blocs had a DOT that was growing faster or falling more slowly than that of excluded countries. The authors also offer some insights into how these changes may affect the home bias in consumption and the border effect.