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KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

국제무역
From Walking to Driving: Economic Impact of Mountain Roads
JETRO
2024.12.12
This paper evaluates the impact of Sindhuli Road on new business establishments in Nepal―new paved roads built on previously mountain trails with elevations between 200 and 1500 meters and traversing 160 kilometers. I use a unique Nepalese dataset that surveys all nonfarm establishments in the formal and informal sectors. To reduce selection bias, I adopt the propensity-score weighted regression method combined with the covariate-balancing propensity-score estimator. The results show that opening the road increased the number of new firms in local treatment wards by 108%, employment by 132%, and sales by 232%. The impacts were heterogeneous across construction sections, industries, and genders. To infer transportation cost savings in a modal shift from porter to vehicle, I surveyed porter transport prices along mountain trekking routes and show a striking difference in transport prices between porter and vehicle.