The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data
This paper studies the impacts of the large-scale Road Sector Development Program in Ethiopia between 1997 and 2016 on local economic activity and land cover (urbanization and cropland). It exploits spatial and temporal variation in road upgrades a...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099332404062230683/IDU073a7158605532046490b712098aed9008539 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37280 |
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okr-10986-372802022-04-09T05:10:38Z The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data Alder, Simon Croke, Kevin Duhaut, Alice Marty, Robert Vaisey, Ariana ECONOMIC IMPACT SATELLITE DATA ROAD USE SATELLITE DATA ROAD SECTOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ROADS LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CROPLAND REDUCTION INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING LAND USE PLANNING This paper studies the impacts of the large-scale Road Sector Development Program in Ethiopia between 1997 and 2016 on local economic activity and land cover (urbanization and cropland). It exploits spatial and temporal variation in road upgrades across Ethiopia, together with high-resolution panel data derived from satellite imagery. The findings show that road upgrades contributed to increases in local economic activity, as proxied by nighttime lights and urban land area. However, there is significant heterogeneity in the results across baseline levels of economic activity. Specifically, gains from road upgrades are concentrated in areas with moderate-to-high initial levels of economic activity. By contrast, there was little, or even negative, growth in areas with low levels of initial economic activity. Finally, the findings show that road upgrades contributed to a reduction in cropland in areas with medium-to-high baseline nighttime lights. The results suggest that Ethiopia's ambitious road infrastructure development program overall increased local economic activity and urbanization, but that it also had important distributional implications that need to be taken into account when planning such infrastructure programs. 2022-04-08T16:39:43Z 2022-04-08T16:39:43Z 2022-04 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099332404062230683/IDU073a7158605532046490b712098aed9008539 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37280 English Policy Research Working Paper;10000 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research Ethiopia |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
ECONOMIC IMPACT SATELLITE DATA ROAD USE SATELLITE DATA ROAD SECTOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ROADS LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CROPLAND REDUCTION INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING LAND USE PLANNING |
| spellingShingle |
ECONOMIC IMPACT SATELLITE DATA ROAD USE SATELLITE DATA ROAD SECTOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ROADS LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CROPLAND REDUCTION INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING LAND USE PLANNING Alder, Simon Croke, Kevin Duhaut, Alice Marty, Robert Vaisey, Ariana The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| geographic_facet |
Ethiopia |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;10000 |
| description |
This paper studies the impacts of the
large-scale Road Sector Development Program in Ethiopia
between 1997 and 2016 on local economic activity and land
cover (urbanization and cropland). It exploits spatial and
temporal variation in road upgrades across Ethiopia,
together with high-resolution panel data derived from
satellite imagery. The findings show that road upgrades
contributed to increases in local economic activity, as
proxied by nighttime lights and urban land area. However,
there is significant heterogeneity in the results across
baseline levels of economic activity. Specifically, gains
from road upgrades are concentrated in areas with
moderate-to-high initial levels of economic activity. By
contrast, there was little, or even negative, growth in
areas with low levels of initial economic activity. Finally,
the findings show that road upgrades contributed to a
reduction in cropland in areas with medium-to-high baseline
nighttime lights. The results suggest that Ethiopia's
ambitious road infrastructure development program overall
increased local economic activity and urbanization, but that
it also had important distributional implications that need
to be taken into account when planning such infrastructure programs. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Alder, Simon Croke, Kevin Duhaut, Alice Marty, Robert Vaisey, Ariana |
| author_facet |
Alder, Simon Croke, Kevin Duhaut, Alice Marty, Robert Vaisey, Ariana |
| author_sort |
Alder, Simon |
| title |
The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| title_short |
The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| title_full |
The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| title_fullStr |
The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| title_full_unstemmed |
The Impact of Ethiopia’s Road Investment Program on Economic Development and Land Use : Evidence from Satellite Data |
| title_sort |
impact of ethiopia’s road investment program on economic development and land use : evidence from satellite data |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2022 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099332404062230683/IDU073a7158605532046490b712098aed9008539 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37280 |
| _version_ |
1764486877543399424 |