Economic Effects of Airports in Central Europe: A Critical Review of Empirical Studies and Their Methodological Assumptions

Abstract

The availability of an adequate infrastructure (i.e. transport, communication facilities, power supplies, logistics) to provide certain essential services is indispensable for economic development. The organization and provision of services of an airport have a wide range of effects on the economy of the region and for the whole country. The public and private sectors, especially companies and households in general take the proximity of an airport into consideration when making decisions with regard to the location of a business or to investments in private property, such as a residence. In this paper, a review is made of a number of studies that have been carried out already to identify and to assess the different economic effects related to air transportation facilities in a regional economic context. A comparison is made of the empirical results, assumptions and methods which are used to make these assessments in the studies that have been recently published. In this paper, it is revealed that, of the determinants that were found, the great volume of traffic at airports is one which does indeed have a very marked effect on a region. However, in these studies, there is much diversity in the design of the study, the methods used and, consequently, the assumptions, and location, which makes a comparative analysis very difficult. Especially the methods that were used to assess the effects are critically reviewed, and the problems arising owing to methodologically inherent overestimations are discussed.