The Russian Federation - An Exploratory Assessment of Transport Connectivity
This study describes the performance of the sector vis-à-vis socioeconomic features of regions and discusses whether the development of market opportunities is limited by the availability of transport.Specifically, this study has two main objective...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/339481528903196232/The-Russian-Federation-an-exploratory-assessment-of-transport-connectivity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30046 |
| Summary: | This study describes the performance of
the sector vis-à-vis socioeconomic features of regions and
discusses whether the development of market opportunities is
limited by the availability of transport.Specifically, this
study has two main objectives. First, it provides an
exploratory assessment of transport connectivity in Russia.
Second, it assesses the impact of improved transport
productivity on the Russian economy and whether such an
improvement has different economic impacts in various
regions of the country. The study is complemented by a
market/industry analysis and the performance of transport
infrastructure in two selected regions : Zabaikalsky Krai
and Khabarovsk Krai. Transport connectivity, as defined in
this study, mainly focuses on freight transport and not so
much on how passengers in different parts of the country are
able to access transport services. Furthermore, while this
study assesses general relationships between transport
connectivity and economic outcomes—such as growth, poverty,
and productivity it does not intend to formally or
empirically establish a causal relationship between these
variables. Expectedly, the average economic distance to
market is much less in the well-connected western and
central regions than in the more isolated eastern and
northern regions. An increase in transport efficiency,
resulting from reduction of travel time or technological
progress,can have a different impact on regional
productivity and welfare. This study presents some
preliminary results of a simulation of a positive shock in
transport efficiency using a regional general equilibrium
analysis for Russia. International surveys of manufacturing
and services firms provide mixed evidence of the
importanceof transport for firm productivity in Russia.For a
country as a large as Russia, it does not suffice to provide
an explanation of connectivity in thewhole territory.
However, isolated regions, at least those located in areas
far from markets in the European side of Russia, may not
necessarily be “transport disconnected” from their markets.
Finally, it is important to note that in a large country
like Russia achieving a good level of connectivity depends
both on the density of the national transport network and
the level of population dispersion.This report is divided
into two parts. Part one considers the provision of
transport services at the national level. We first summarize
selected studies of the impact of transport services on
economic growth and development, then discuss some relevant
characteristics of Russia’s provision of transport services
andtransport sector performance. Part two of the report
develops two case studies. |
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