Inter-regional air transport accessibility and macro-economic performance in Japan

Although there have been various studies on macro-economic effect of public investment, not much attention has been paid to the impact of actual accessibility realized by transport industry and infrastructure. In this paper, we performed a cross-sectional analysis of 47 prefectures in Japan between 1995 and 2000 by Cobb-Douglas production function and growth regression approach. The results explain why deregulation and infrastructure development in air transport during 1990s manifest mixed results of inter-regional accessibility and per-capita GDP growth for core and peripheral areas in Japan. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.