No. 101. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE COMPETITION IN THE GREEK TRANSPORT SECTOR: INTER-MODAL AND SPATIAL CONSIDERATIONS

T. Tsekeris. 2009.

 

The development of transport networks requires significant public expenditures in several types of (road, rail, port, airport and urban public transport) infrastructure and services. This paper aims at examining substitution and complementarity relationships between public expenditures in different types of investment in the Greek transport sector. Based on a spatio-economic model of regional competition, a system of panel regression equations is developed to examine the country-wide patterns of inter-modal expenditure competition with the use of data at the NUTS III-level of Prefecture. In this study, the data refer to the Public Investment Program of the Greek government for the transport sector during the period 2000-2007. The results indicate the statistically significant scale effects of transport investments as well as the statistically significant substitution effects of road infrastructure on other types of transport investment. On the other hand, most public expenditures in non-road (including urban public transport) facilities are found to be complementary to each other. In particular, airport expenditure relates to the most significant synergistic effects on expenditures in other types of public transport facilities. Policy-makers need to consider these expenditure externalities in the transport sector for the strategic planning and evaluation of infrastructure supply, and coordinate or subsidize public transport projects with significant positive externalities.

 

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