The Network of US Airports and Its Effects on Employment

Download or read book The Network of US Airports and Its Effects on Employment written by Nicholas Sheard and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper estimates the effects of airport infrastructure on employment and the distributionof the labor force in US metropolitan areas. The analysis is based on models for the airnetwork and for its effects on employment, which are estimated using US data. Air trafficis found to have a positive effect on the population of the local area, with an elasticity of0.010, so airport improvements induce a reallocation of workers between regions. Air trafficis also found to have a positive effect on employment in the local area with an elasticity of0.036 and a weakly positive effect on the employment rate in other places within 400 miles.Simulations suggest that for each job created in the local area by an airport expansion, twoand a half jobs are created elsewhere in the US due to the changes in the air network andthe distribution of employment. Expanding the average airport adds one job in the US forroughly each $78,000 invested. The results further suggest that the US air network is lesscentralized than would be optimal.