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Transport Reviews

ISSN: 0144-1647 (Print) 1464-5327 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ttrv20

Air transport and economic growth: a review of the


impact mechanism and causal relationships

Fangni Zhang & Daniel J. Graham

To cite this article: Fangni Zhang & Daniel J. Graham (2020): Air transport and economic
growth: a review of the impact mechanism and causal relationships, Transport Reviews, DOI:
10.1080/01441647.2020.1738587

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1738587

Published online: 13 Mar 2020.

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TRANSPORT REVIEWS
https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1738587

Air transport and economic growth: a review of the impact


mechanism and causal relationships
a,b
Fangni Zhang and Daniel J. Grahamc
a
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong;
b
School of Aviation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; cCentre for Transport Studies, Imperial
College London, London, UK

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY


The impacts of air transport on the economy arise both directly, via Received 26 January 2019
activity in the aviation sector; and indirectly, via increased spending Accepted 27 February 2020
and wider economic benefits associated with improved access to
KEYWORDS
resources, markets, technology and economic mass. Economic Air transport; economic
activity, in turn, supports and generates demand for air transport. growth; reciprocal causality;
Despite its potential importance, the reciprocal nature of the market imperfections;
causal relationship between air transport and economic literature review
performance has remained somewhat understudied. This paper
provides a synthesis review of the channels the aviation sector
interacts with regional economy. The review focuses on
quantitative studies that contribute to the state-of-the-art
understandings of the causality. We find that the reciprocal causal
relationship is more likely to prevail in less developed economies.
For more developed economies, only one direction of the
causality is recognised, which runs from air transport to economic
growth. Especially substantial is the effect of airline enplanement
on service-related employment. The reverse direction of the
relationship is, however, not as significant as believed in a causal
sense within the developed world. Therefore, cautions need to be
taken when applying income elasticities (such as the elasticity of
air passenger demand with respect to GDP) in air travel demand
forecasting, which implicitly assumes that economic growth
causally leads to air traffic increment. Based on the fundamental
links between air transport and economic growth, some typical
imperfections and inefficiencies in aviation markets are discussed
and promising avenues for future research are proposed.

1. Introduction
Decisions on airport expansion often prove controversial. The potential stimulus effect of
expanded airport on economic growth is the major argument of proponents. Even though
there is little doubt that the development of air transport and economic growth are
strongly correlated, there is no consensus in the literature as to nature and magnitude
of the relationship between the two.
One of the main reasons is that causal linkages between aviation and the economy can
be difficult to observe. On the one hand, the aviation industry transports passengers and

CONTACT Fangni Zhang fnzhang@hku.hk; fangni.zhang@hotmail.com


© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

cargo around the globe, facilitating access to markets, employment, resources, labour,
knowledge and technology, which could lead to economic growth. On the other hand,
economic success generates demand for air transport, in both passenger and freight
markets. In this sense, air transport could be both a “cause” and an “effect” of economic
performance. The causal analysis is of great theoretical and practical importance. It can
provide references to governments, airlines, airports, logistic companies, transportation
planners, other stakeholders and policy makers. Despite the obvious scope for bi-direc-
tional causality, the number of studies that examined the bi-directional causality is very
limited. Many studies in the field simply explore one direction or the other in isolation.
Another important issue that obscures a causal understanding of aviation is the existence
of market distortion. For example, due to inefficiencies in the allocation of slots, there are
considerable rents flowing through to the airlines and labour which means that the normal
channels through which economic activity is transmitted are distorted.
In this context, this paper provides a synthesis review of the current understandings of
(i) linkages between air transport and economic growth, (ii) the causal nature of the links
and (iii) imperfections and inefficiencies of the aviation market. A multi-stage approach is
employed to researching the literature. First, a scoping literature review is conducted to
identify relevant impact channels between air transport and the economy. The database
search approach is supplemented with the snowballing search method. The keywords (“air
transport”, “economic growth” and “impact”) are used to search several databases, i.e. Web
of Science, Scopus and Google scholar. We then undertake screening on the search result
checking relevance at the title, abstract and full-text levels. Short papers (less than five
pages), articles published in non-recognised venues, and those not written in English
are excluded. The snowballing literature search approach is then adopted to expand
the survey into relevant references that are cited by identified studies. These include pub-
lished articles in peer-reviewed journals and commissioned studies of major air transport
authorities. We synthesise the obtained literature and establish the conceptual framework
that describes the mechanism through which air transport interacts with the economy in
Section 2. Second, it is identified that the impacts of air transport on economic growth are
typically quantified by supply-chain effects and spillover effects, and the reversed impact is
often referred to as the feedback effects. We then classify the literature accordingly and
review the empirical evidence of each effect, respectively. Third, given that the potential
interaction is bi-directional, Section 3 inquires into the reciprocal causal relationship. Based
on the search results in previous stages, an additional keyword “causal” is used to filter the
results. Fourth, Section 4 reviews the market imperfections and inefficiencies that are dis-
cussed in existing literature. We apply additional keywords to search for ancillary studies
that are relevant to “slot allocation”, “rent-seeking”, “failure airport planning”, “flow imbal-
ance”, and “negative impact”, respectively. Based on the reviewed literature, several
research gaps are identified and discussed in Section 5, and conclusions are provided in
Section 6.

2. Mechanisms of aviation–economy interaction


This section concerns the major channels that aviation interacts with the economy. A
conceptual framework is built based on previous literature to illustrate the fundamental
linkages between air transport and the economy. We then look into the major
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 3

interaction channels and review the empirical evidence associated with each of them,
respectively.

2.1. A conceptual framework


The existing literature has identified a wide range of economic impacts and interactions
related to air transport. Figure 1 is a conceptual framework describing the major inter-
action channels between air transport (shown in the shaded area) and the economy
(shown on the right panel) that are identified in the literature, based on a synthesis of
the frameworks established in Tam and Hansman (2002), Britton, Cooper, and Tinsley
(2005), ATAG (2008), and Laird and Mackie (2018). Figure 1 involves six major linkages:
(1)–(3) characterise the dynamics within the aviation system, while (4)–(6) represent the
linkages between the aviation system as a whole and the wider economy. Links (4)–(6)
are the focus of this paper and hence detailed descriptions are provided on the right
hand-side.1
It is noteworthy that the mechanism shown in Figure 1 is theoretical, which does not
represent a universal law. The inclusion in the diagram does not imply that there exists
a robust evidence of existence in all aviation systems. Some market failure and inefficien-
cies are discussed in Section 4.
We now illustrate the linkages in Figure 1, starting from those within the aviation
system, links (1)–(3). In the system, airports and airlines make decisions on the network
capacity, fares and schedules, depending on profitability. These decisions collectively
govern the supply of the air transport system (link 1), which further influences the
travel costs and the travel demand (link 2). Variations in the demand affect the profitability
of the aviation sector (link 3). Links (1)–(3) delineate the internal feedback loop connecting
demand and supply along the airport-airline-passenger vertical structure.2
The links (4)–(6) concern the interactions between the economy and the aviation
system as a whole. The employment and spending in the aviation industry have direct,
indirect, and induced impacts on the economy (link 4). Direct impacts arise from activities
directly related to the operation of air transport. Indirect impacts arise from businesses that
provide goods and services to the upstream supply chain such as aviation fuel suppliers,
aircraft sub-components suppliers, facility construction companies. Induced impacts

Figure 1. Major channels that air transport and economy interact.


4 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

comprise subsequent rounds of spending from the households employed directly or


indirectly by the aviation industry itself. The sum of direct, indirect, and induced
impacts is widely referred to as the “supply-chain effects”, e.g. Tam and Hansman
(2002), Hansman (2005), Britton et al. (2005), ATAG (2005), ATAG (2008), Airports Commis-
sion (2014), FAA (2016).
The availability of air transport supply further enables certain types of activities to occur
and facilitates the growth of other industries (link 5). Air transport boosts productivity,
facilitates world trade, promotes tourism, improves the efficiency of supply chains, and
enables investment and labour supply both into and out of countries and regions, referred
to as the “spillover effects” (ATAG, 2005, 2008; Button & Yuan, 2013).
The interaction between air transport and the economy also includes a series of “feed-
back effects”. In the short-run, the demand for passenger travel and airfreight depends
partly on the contemporaneous level of economic activity in an area (link 6b). In the
long-run, economic growth in a region generates resources for infrastructure investment
that can set in motion a series of stimulus effect on all relevant industries in the economy
including air transport (link 6a).
In summary, the impacts of air transport on the economy arise through its supply-chain
and spillover effects. Economic activities generate travel demand and provide financial
support to air transport via feedback effects. The interaction between air transport and
the economy is thus bi-directional.

2.2. Empirical evidence of major linkages


This section reviews empirical evidence related to the major interaction channels, i.e. the
supply-chain effects, spillover effects, and feedback effects.

2.2.1. Supply-chain effects


The supply-chain effects of air transport refer to its direct, indirect, and induced impacts on
the economy (link 4 in Figure 1). The aviation industry itself is a significant direct generator
of employment and economic activity. Indirect impacts also include those from businesses
such as terminal retailing, hotels and car rental services that are associated with air travels.
Airport revenues are derived from two broad streams: aeronautical revenues from airlines
and passenger charges (corresponding to the direct impacts of air transport); and com-
mercial revenues from other activities at the airport (contributing to the indirect
impacts). According to the Airports Council International (ACI) economics report (Airport
economics report, 2016), airports increasingly rely on their commercial revenue and an
average of 45% of global airport revenue is derived from commercial activities in 2014.
Among all the businesses, terminal retailing is the most significant commercial source
(see, e.g. Graham, 2009; Perng, Chow, & Liao, 2010; Starkie, 2002; Thompson, 2007).
The contribution of air transport to the global economy in terms of the value and
number of jobs that air transport generates is reported in ATAG (2005) and ATAG (2008)
and is summarised in Table 1. It shows that air transport supported around 14 million
jobs directly and indirectly, accounting for more than 2.3% of the world GDP in year
2004 and 2006. As the breakdown, each measure is built up from three components,
the direct, indirect, and induced impacts. In ATAG’s estimation, “direct impacts” include
the employment and economic activities of airline and airport operations, aircraft
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 5

Table 1. The supply-chain effects of air transport (global gross).


Year Measurement Direct Indirect Induced Total
2004 Employment (millions) 5 5.8 2.7 13.5
GDP contribution (%) 0.9 1.02 0.48 2.4
2006 Employment (millions) 5.5 6.3 2.9 14.7
GDP contribution (%) 0.86 0.98 0.46 2.3
Note: Statistics from ATAG (2005, 2008).

maintenance, air traffic control and management, and air passenger services, as well as
those of aerospace manufacturers selling aircraft and components to airlines and
related businesses. “Indirect impacts” include employment and activities of suppliers to
the air transport industry, e.g. aviation fuel suppliers, construction companies that build
airport facilities, suppliers of sub-components used in aircraft, manufacturers of goods
sold in airport retail outlets, and activities in the business services sector (call centres, IT,
accountancy, etc.). “Induced impacts” are generated from the spending of those directly
or indirectly employed in the air transport sector supports jobs in industries such as
retail outlets, companies producing consumer goods, and a range of service industries
(banks, restaurants, etc.).
National and regional estimations of the supply-chain effects are often based on input–
output models, which describe how indirect industries utilise the output of a particular
industry as inputs in the production of goods or service, and report how much spending
is supported by the employees of the industry and its full supply chain, i.e. the induced
output (Ambargis & Mead, 2012; Barol, 1989; Batey, Madden, & Scholefield, 1993; Butler
& Kiernan, 1986; FAA, 2016; Oxford Economics, 2014). The benefits and limitations of
input–output models are discussed in Yu (2018).

2.2.2. Spillover effects


The rise of air transport substantially reduces frictional constraints on long-distance econ-
omic interactions, thereby creating new locational advantages for metropolitan areas with
efficient air services (link 5 in Figure 1). Such “spillover effects” of air transport have been
explored in a number of government or public funded studies (e.g. Airports Commission,
2014; ATAG, 2005, 2008; Britton et al., 2005; Oxford Economics, 2014). Generally, these
studies have looked at effects on contemporary and aggregated terms of trade, invest-
ment, tourism, employment, and GDP. They tend to find that the structure of economic
interdependence owes less to geographic proximity but more to accessibility through
the air transport network. Thus, air transport is viewed as the key in overcoming distance
and enabling enhanced interactions.
In addition to public sector studies, there has been considerable academic interest in
quantifying the spillover effects of air transport using econometric methods. The regional
employment, amongst, is the major economic indicator concerned in these studies. This
includes not only those looked at the overall employment in a region but also those
that further explored the employment in specific sectors or industries. For example,
earlier studies explored the econometric linkages (i) between the air transport accessibility
and metropolitan employment growth (Irwin & Kasarda, 1991); (ii) between the existence
of a hub airport and high-technology employment growth (Button, Lall, Stough, & Trice,
1999); and (iii) between the existence of direct access to international air services and
6 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

new economy employment (Button & Taylor, 2000). A more general framework is intro-
duced by Brueckner (2003) and extended by many others (e.g. Green, 2007; Percoco,
2010) to assess the effect of air transport activities on economic performance while con-
trolling for characteristics of the local economy, such as population, location endowment,
climate, and tax burden.
Regarding determinants of the spillover effects, passenger and cargo activities attracted
the most attention. Many studies established strong associations between passenger
movement and regional economic indicators. In particular, Brueckner (2003) finds that a
10% increase in passenger enplanement is associated with a 1% increase in employment
in service-related industries, and no effect on manufacturing-related employment. A series
of subsequent studies (Baker, Merkert, & Kamruzzaman, 2015; Blonigen & Cristea, 2015;
Green, 2007; Marazzo, Scherre, & Fernandes, 2010; Percoco, 2010; Sellner & Nagl, 2010)
echo that air passenger flow is a powerful predictor of regional growth, measured by
the employment, investment, income, population, or GDP growth, using data from
varies economies. While the above studies primarily focus on the realised passenger
volume, Sheard (2014) examines the effect of airport size using the designed passenger
capacity and finds that the intended passenger volume does not lead to total local
employment growth. The positive effect of new airport on economic growth is also ident-
ified in Tveter (2017) and Gibbons & Wu (2019).
With respect to the effect of air cargo activity, Green (2007)’s results suggest that it has
little predictive power for regional population and employment than passenger move-
ment. Chang and Chang (2009) and Button and Yuan (2013) then explicitly investigate
the causal relationship between air cargo volume and economic growth (in terms of
employment and GDP, respectively) using Granger (1969)’s method. The difference in
their results is partly driven by the extent the model addresses the endogeneity issue,
which will be discussed in Section 3.
Apart from passenger and cargo volumes, other key indicators that are identified
include the network centrality (Irwin & Kasarda, 1991), the airport size/capacity (Sheard,
2014, 2019), the number of direct destinations and the aircraft volume (Bilotkach, 2015).
Appendix A summarises some studies that examine the spillover effects of air transport
that appear in peer-reviewed journals. It shows that estimates from the US market gener-
ally indicate that the effect of passenger volume on total employment (pooled sectors)
ranges from 0.03 to 0.08, indicating that doubling air passenger volume is typically associ-
ated with a 3–8% growth in total employment in the region. While the effect of air passen-
ger on service-related employment is between 0.1 and 0.2, there is no obvious relationship
between air passenger movement and goods-related employment.

2.2.3. Feedback effects


The feedback effects of economic growth on the development of the aviation industry are
generally measured through two channels: capital provision (link 6a in Figure 1) and
demand generation (link 6b).3
The first channel, capital provision, has multiple impacts. In the long run, it influences
location choices of emerging air service markets, and in the short run, it determines the
infrastructure capacity of existing airports. The infrastructure investment and the avail-
ability of funding for air transport have been studied extensively in the literature (e.g.
Mills, 1991; Min, 1994; Munnell, 1992; Walters, 1978). In particular, Brueckner (1985)
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 7

sheds insights on the locational determinants of regional airports, suggesting that they
should include not only population and income measures but also whether a metropolitan
area has the state capital which reflects the strategic competitiveness of the local
economy. Bonnefoy (2008) further shows that forecast of future economic growth
within the metropolitan area is the key factor influencing the decision on either expanding
an existing airport or building a new one. To help attract or secure an airline service in
smaller communities, possible government intervention schemes are discussed in
Nolan, Ritchie, and Rowcroft (2005).
The second channel of the feedback effects, demand generation, refers to the effect
that growth in economy leads to growth in air travel demand. It is often measured by
the income elasticity of air transport demand. Appendix B summarises the estimation
results from Brueckner (1985), Oum, Zhang, and Zhang (1993), Graham (2000), Dargay
and Hanly (2001), Njegovan (2006a), Njegovan (2006b), IATA (2007), Chi and Baek
(2012a), Chi and Baek (2012b), Yao and Yang (2012), DfT (2013), Lakew (2015), Lo, Wan,
and Zhang (2015), Bourguignon and Darpeix (2016). In general, the median income elas-
ticity in between 1.186 and 1.546 (according meta-analysis results of Gallet & Doucoulia-
gos, 2014; Gillen, Morrison, & Stewart, 2003), suggesting that air travel is a luxury good
and a slightly immature market (Graham, 2000).
The income elasticity estimates have widespread applications in air travel demand fore-
casting (e.g. DfT, 2013; Lo et al., 2015; Oum, Waters, & Yong, 1992; Wadud, 2014).4 The
rationale is that a larger value of the income elasticity implies a greater response of air
travel to changes in income, thus placing greater (lesser) pressure on air transport
systems during periods of rising (falling) income (Gallet & Doucouliagos, 2014).
However, there is an underlying assumption in this approach – economic development
does causally lead to air travel growth. While regressions can produce strong correlations,
the causal relationship between the two terms is not identified. Whether economic growth
causes air traffic change, or alternatively, air traffic change causes economic growth, or
they just coincidently have the similar trend, arises as an unanswered question. This
gives rise to the discussion in the next section.

3. The bi-directional causal relationship analysis


The above studies, among many others, have established a strong correlation between air
traffic and economic performance. However, issues of causality are often overlooked. For
example, research seeking to measure the economic impacts of air transport is often
driven by the assumption that air transport development will attract economic activity
to a region, and is largely focused on how to gauge the size of the resulting multiplier.
However, in many cases the economic growth is not caused by airline services but
rather that the airlines move to certain locations simply to exploit strong, natural economic
growth (Button et al., 1999; Button & Yuan, 2013).
Likewise, the fundamental assumption in many air traffic forecast studies is that the
economic growth boosts air traffic. Accordingly, research efforts are devoted to estimating
the magnitude of income elasticity of demand. Nevertheless, there are obvious examples
where the reverse relationship will happen (e.g. Green, 2007). Suppose a city has compa-
nies that promise to expand once they have adequate air services. The local government
will then have the incentive to prioritise the development of aviation sector and improve
8 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

air service before the companies actually expand. Thus, it is the promise of economic devel-
opment that leads to air transport growth rather than the development itself.
Apart from serving as the theoretical basis for other streams of studies, causal analysis
itself is of great theoretical and practical importance. It can provide references to govern-
ments, airlines, airports, logistic companies, transportation planners, other stakeholders,
and policy makers. For example, in the presence of a causal effect from economy to air
transport, the responsible stakeholder can undertake appropriate infrastructure planning
and secure investment when there is a predicted increase in the economy. The reverse
direction of the causal relationship reveals whether, and to what extent, air transport
should be fostered in order to realise economic growth. When facing limited resources,
the knowledge of causality provides guidance in making decisions on whether to invest
in the aviation side or the economy side directly. In view of its importance, the number
of studies that have examined the bi-directional causality is very limited.
In the literature, the bi-directional (reciprocal) relationship is often examined by simul-
taneous equations in the form
y1 = y2 g1 + x1′ b1 + 11 (1)

and
y2 = y1 g2 + x2′ b2 + 12 , (2)

where y1 represents the economic indicator; y2 represents the measure of air transport; x i
(i = 1, 2) is a vector of exogenous variables correlated with yi ; gi and bi are vector of coeffi-
cients to be estimated; and 1i is an error term. It is noteworthy that the causality discussion
mainly concerns the validity of spillover effects (from air transport to economic growth)
and the feedback effects (from economic growth to air transport) in the causal sense.
Although the reciprocal relationship involves both Equations (1) and (2), many papers
that address the “economic impacts of air transport” focus on Equation (1). Among this
branch of work, the instrumental variables (IV) estimation is commonly used to mitigate
the impact of reverse causality. This approach entails an IV that is highly correlated with
the endogenous explanatory variable y2 but uncorrelated with the error term 11 in
Equation (1). The corresponding estimation process normally includes two stages (i.e.
the two-stage least squares method, 2SLS). The IVs that employed in spillover effects
studies include the hub status, geographic centrality, proximity to a hub airport, capacity
control policy, special leisure attractions (Brueckner, 2003); the lagged population growth,
distance to coastline (Green, 2007); and the number of hotels (Percoco, 2010). While all
studies find significant and positive spillover effects of air transport, none of them reject
the null hypothesis of zero correlation between the air transport measure y2 and the
error term 11 of Equation (1). This indicates that, within their study scopes (1990 US and
2002 Italy), the feedback effects of employment growth on air traffic are not significant.
In addition to IV, study units can be properly selected to further prevent empirical
results from being contaminated by the reverse causality and/or other endogeneity con-
cerns. The difference-in-differences method is used in Blonigen and Cristea (2015) and
Tveter (2017) to compare the changes of interested variables associated with treatment
and control groups, which are believed to be endogenous and exogenous, respectively.
When analysing the airline network expansion in China, Gibbons & Wu (2019) work with
counties that locate midway between existing and new airports. It is supposed that
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 9

these counties are “incidentally” affected by the network expansion as they were not expli-
citly targeted for development nor directly affected by airport operations and thus the
analysis reflects higher causality credibility. Similarly, Campante and Yanagizawa-Drott
(2018) study the impact of direct long-distance air links on economic performance by com-
paring routes that are just under 6,000 miles with those slightly above that threshold.
Under the assumption that those pairs across the threshold are not systematically
different, the variation in economic outcomes reflects the effect of air transport when con-
trolling for exogenous factors.
The parameters of Equations (1) and (2) can be identified simultaneously using some
specific strategies. The maximum likelihood method is adopted in Irwin and Kasarda
(1991) to fit the simultaneous Equations (1) and (2). They show that both g1 and g2 are
positive but only g1 is statistically significant. In the studied context, the results imply
that the primary causal effect is from the change in airline network centrality to the
growth of total employment in US metropolitans between 1950 and 1980. The feedback
effect of employment growth on airline network centrality is only marginal.
Recent studies commonly adopt the Granger (1969)’s method to examine the validity of
bi-directional causal relationship. A variable A is said to “Granger cause” another variable B
if B is better predicted by using past values of A, in addition to past values of B, and vice
versa. Button et al. (1999) is among the first to use Granger (1969)’s method to study the
causal relationship between air traffic and economic performance (income and employ-
ment) based on metropolitan data of the US. The analysis is then extended to economies
in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and America over various periods (Baker et al., 2015; Brida, Bukstein,
& Zapata-Aguirre, 2016a; Brida, Rodríguez-Brindis, & Zapata-Aguirre, 2016b; Button & Yuan,
2013; Chang & Chang, 2009; Fernandes & Pacheco, 2010; Hakim & Merkert, 2016; Marazzo
et al., 2010; Mukkala & Tervo, 2013; Van De Vijver, Derudder, & Witlox, 2014).
However, by its definition, the Granger causality reflects the “predictive causality” but
does not necessarily warrant true causality. If both A and B are driven by a common
third process with different lags, one might still fail to reject the alternative hypothesis
of Granger causality and so forth to produce misguiding results (Maziarz, 2015). Several
extensions have been proposed to address latent confounding effects and non-linear
causal relationships that are not considered in the original form of Granger causality
test (Eichler, 2012).
Table 2 summarises some studies that explicitly investigate both directions of the
causal relationship simultaneously (studies that only deal with one direction are
omitted). It appears that this body of literature can be categorised into two main
streams, i.e. those find a uni-directional causal relationship running from air transport
growth to economic growth, and those find a bi-directional causal relationship.5
In general, most studies establish evidence that air transport has positive economic
impacts as shown in the “causality R(1)” column. Thus, the spillover effect from air trans-
port to economic performance is broadly validated by causal analyses worldwide
(although in some contexts it is weekly or marginal significant). The major difference
between the two streams lies in the existence of the reversed causal link from economic
growth to air transport (feedback causal link), shown in the “causality R(2)” column.
Studies of the first stream are based on data from the US and Europe, which are higher
income countries with relatively mature aviation markets. Studies from these economies
tend to decline the feedback causal link: this link is either not present at all in a causal
10
F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM
Table 2. Studies explicitly examined the two directions of causal relationships between air transport and economic performance.
Causality R Causality R(2): Peer-reviewed journal &
Air traffic measure Economic (1): Air  Economy  Study unit & Impact factor 2018
Article (s) measure(s) Economy Air Identified causal relationship period Method (CiteScore 2018)
Uni-direction: AirEconomy
Irwin and Centrality in Emp Evident Not evident R(1): CentralityEmp: 0.429 US 1950–1980 Maximum American Sociological
Kasarda network likelihood Rev. 5.391 (7.060)
(1991) estimation
Button et al. Pax Hightech Evident Not evident R(1): HubHightech Emp+12,000 US 1979–1997 Time-series J. of Air Transp. Mgmt.
(1999) Emp Granger test 2.412 (3.27)
Brueckner Pax Emp Evident Not evident R(1): PaxEmp: 0.08 US 1996 2SLS Urban Studies 3.272
(2003) (3.890)
Green (2007) Pax PC; Pop growth; Evident Not evident R(1): PaxEmp: 0.2 US 1990 2SLS Real Estate Econ. 1.764
Originations; Hub Emp growth (2.05)
(0-1); Cargo PC
Percoco (2010) Pax Emp; Pop Evident Weekly R(1): total/service Emp; R(2): weekly Italy 2002 2SLS Urban Studies 3.272
evident PopPax (3.890)
Button and Cargo Emp; Evident Not/Weekly R(1): evident; R(2): not evident for US 1990–2009 Panel Granger Urban Studies 3.272
Yuan (2013) Income; evident income; weakly for Emp test (3.890)
Income PC;
Mukkala and Pax Emp growth; Evident Weakly R(1): in remote regions; R(2): weakly Europe 1991– Panel Granger Envirm. & Planning A
Tervo (2013) GDP evident with 1-year lag 2010 test 2.459 (2.88)
Brida et al. Flights GDP Evident Not evident R(1): national aggregate Italy 1971–2012 Time-series International J. of Aviation
(2016a) Granger test Mgmt. 0.09
Bi-direction: AirEconomy & EconomyAir
Chang and Cargo GDP Evident Evident R(1)(2): in short & long-run; regional Taiwan 1974– Time-series J. of Air Transp. Mgmt.
Chang aggregate 2006 Granger test 2.412 (3.27)
(2009)
Marazzo et al. Pax GDP Weakly Evident R(1): moderate/slow; R(2): strong/ Brazil 1966–2006 Time-series Transp. Res. Part E 4.253
(2010) evident fast; national aggregate Granger test (5.50)
Van De Vijver Pax Trade Evident Evident R(1): between more & less developed Asia-Pacific Panel Granger J. of Transp. Geography
et al. (2014) country pairs, e.g. Australia-Thailand; 1980–2010 test 3.560 (4.41)
R(2): in liberalised markets, e.g.
Singapore
Baker et al. Pax Income Evident Evident R(1): with 2-year lag; R(2): with 1- Australian Panel Granger J. of Transp. Geography
(2015) year lag regional & test 3.560 (4.41)
remote airports
1985–2011
Hakim and Pax; Cargo GDP Weekly Evident R(1): weekly with 3–4 year lag; R(2): South Asia 1973– Panel Granger J. of Transp. Geography
Merkert evident GDPPax: 1.2; GDPcargo: 0.5 2014 test 3.560 (4.41)
(2016)
Brida et al. Pax GDP Evident Evident R(1))(2): national aggregate Mexico 1995– Time-series World Rev. of Intermodal
(2016b) 2003 Granger test Transp. Res. 0.17 (0.44)
Uni-direction: EconomyAir
Fernandes and Pax GDP Not evident Evident R(2): GDPPax: 1.00-2.11; national Brazil 1966–2006 Time-series Transp. Planning and
Pacheco aggregate Granger test Tech. 0.893 (1.07)
(2010)
Note: Pax = Passenger volume; Emp = Employment; Pop = Popolation; PC = Per Capita. Coefficients represent elasticities, for example, 0.429 in the first row means that 1% growth in network
centrality results to 0.429% growth in employment.

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11
12 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

sense or only weakly evident conditional on certain constraints. It appears plausible that
the air transport is a relatively mature or even saturated market in these economies
such that the size of industries, and the rhythm of economic activities supporting the
supply and demand for air transport have reached a relatively stable equilibrium. The
demand for air transport is thus not sensitively or promptly affected by an incremental
change of an economic indicator such as income or employment.
Contrarily, the second stream mainly consists of studies from economies in Asia-Pacific
and South/Middle America where aviation markets are relatively immature. In these con-
texts, feedback causal link from economic growth to air transport growth dominates the
other direction of the causal relationship. Among these studies, it is worth highlighting
Baker et al. (2015) and Brida et al. (2016b). Baker et al. (2015)’s analysis focuses only on
Australian regional and remote airports, where the more mature metropolitan airports
are excluded. Brida et al. (2016b)’s analysis on the Mexican aviation market, using the
same econometric method, obtains a divergent conclusion from the same authors’
study on Italy, Brida et al. (2016a). This further confirms that the air travel demand in
the less-developed market is more sensitive to economic growth.
The observations imply that the causal effect of air traffic on economic growth is a
reasonable proposition; increases in air traffic do appear to have multiplier effects on
other industries of the economy. However, the feedback effect of economic growth on
air traffic is not as significant as believed in well-developed economies. While the variation
can be partly explained by spatial dimensions and specific contexts in a case-by-case
manner, the underlying factors influencing the inter-causal relationship remain unclear.
A systematic analysis involving intrinsic characteristics of particular economies is lacking
to uncover the driving factors, which will be discussed in Section 5.1.

4. Market imperfections and inefficiencies in aviation industry


From a policy perspective, it is important to recognise that there are market imperfections
that can distort channels through which aviation affects the economy. This section high-
lights a few market imperfections with clear relevance to local government and transport
agencies, and discusses how these imperfections impede the success of securing ade-
quate efficiency of air transport to facilitate economic development.

4.1. Slot allocation inefficiency


Due to economical, political and physical constraints, relying purely on supply side reme-
dies to deal with rapidly growing air traffic demand and severe delay has arguably been
rather unrealistic. Demand management solutions for the allocation of scarce airport
capacity (in terms of slot) have lately received a great deal of consideration (e.g. Button,
2005, 2016; Forsyth, 2017; Madas & Zografos, 2006, 2010; Sieg, 2010). In practice,
however, a number of major airports worldwide have a high proportion of their capacity
utilised by a single airline, or an alliance of airlines. At major US airports, for example, it is
common for the leading carrier to account for three-quarters or more of the flights. At
European airports the proportions are generally smaller but often exceed 50%. This
leads to concerns that there exist considerable inefficiencies underlying such high levels
of slot concentration (Pels, Nijkamp, & Rietveld, 2003; Starkie, 2008). Airline inefficiency
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 13

(low load factors) appears to contribute significantly to airport inefficiency in terms of air
passenger movements. Unsatisfied demand, overbidding, late return of unwanted slots,
and failure to operate allocated slots (the so-called “no shows”) are all factors pointing
or contributing to the inefficient use of an already scarce/insufficient airport capacity
(Madas & Zografos, 2010). According to ICAO (2016), it is clear that the current slot allo-
cation system is likely insufficient to cope with the demand experienced by most of the
major airports.

4.2. Rent-seeking behaviour


Because of the inefficiencies in slot allocation, there are considerable economic rents
flowing through to airlines and labour. The rent seeking and distribution associated
with the exploitation of market power can also cause undesirable distortions. This will
impact adversely on competition and prices and twist the normal channels through
which economic activity is transmitted and, in turn, will compromise the overall economic
efficiency of air transport. One can refer to Forsyth (2004) and Button (2005) for synthesis
analyses of rent-seeking behaviours in the aviation industry and their implications. This
phenomenon exists in the allocation of not only slots but also resources associated with
non-aeronautical services such as hotels, car parks, retail outlets, lounge facilities.
To reduce inefficiencies, there have been moves in many countries to make airport
operators more commercially oriented by either privatising some aspects of airport activity
or engaging the private sector in some partnership arrangement. Approaches differ
according to the state of the local air transport market which is often linked to the
stage in economic development of the region concerned. For example, airports can
vary in terms of their potential revenue flow from different resources. This can affect
the degree of privatisation or deregulation that is possible and the form it is most likely
to take (Button, 2010).

4.3. Poor planning & delay in construction


The poor planning of an airport facility will hinder the economic growth through spillover
effects, and so does the delay in construction. It is pointed out by Starkie (2015) that the
failure to choose GDP enhancing schemes and sticky productivity are factors negating the
transport improvement programme’s overall contribution to economic growth. Though air
transport is supposed to facilitate economic growth, an improper design of the infrastruc-
ture may incur severe economic loss. A notorious example is the failure of Mirabel Airport
in Montreal, which was built to handle 6.8 million people a year hence replacing the city’s
Dorval Airport but was shut down for passenger service after 30 years’ lack of traffic. The
disaster is primarily caused by the overestimation of future traffic growth.
Likewise, the construction delay of a facility in need will not only impede its contribution
to economic growth but also impose extra burden to the economy. Suffering from contin-
ued delays, the construction budget of Berlin Brandenburg Airport has almost tripled from
2011 till now. A number of factors can affect the related decisions. Politics play important
roles; besides, financing, among other constraints, can pose particular problems in poorer
countries or even regions in prosperous nations if they do not have an adequate and stable
tax base or access to more sophisticated financial source (Button, 2010).
14 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

4.4. Inbound/outbound imbalance flows


There are fundamental imbalances in the inbound/outbound passenger and cargo flows
of air transport across economies. The imbalance of aircargo flows is substantially
influenced by the import/export imbalances between countries/regions depending on
the size and scope of local industries. The imbalance of air passenger flows, however,
are related to imbalances in tourism. The services of air transport and the tourism indus-
tries are often consumed jointly, and there are many ways in which the two industries
impact one another. For some particular economies such as the UK, Australia, and
China, there is a significant tourism flow imbalance (Ashworth & Page, 2011; Ashworth,
1989; Prideaux, 2005; Prideaux & Kim, 1999). Therefore, an anatomy of aviation’s economic
benefits should involve decomposition of the underlying inbound and outbound monet-
ary flows. However, the imbalance rarely features in discussions about the value of aviation
to the economy. Moreover, complications arising from exchange rate fluctuations would
presumably make the measured elasticity of air travel particularly time dependent, as
found in Athanasopoulos, Deng, Li, and Song (2014). But again, this effect has been
largely overlooked in elasticity estimations and in the resultant traffic forecasts.

4.5. Negative spillovers in the economy


While this paper mainly focuses on the positive impact, it is important to recognise that air
transport also incurs considerable negative spillovers in the economy. Air transport has
many interactions with other systems, by far the most important of which are those with
the environment. There is a growing attention on engine emissions and aircraft noise gen-
erated during aircraft operation (Bows, Anderson, & Peeters, 2009; Girvin, 2009; Lu & Morrell,
2006) but less on the material and energy consumption associated with manufacturing,
maintaining and ultimately disposing aircraft and aviation infrastructure, and those associ-
ated with surface transporting of employees, passengers, freight, goods, and waste (Daley,
2010). The intensive resource consumption, waste production, and greenhouse gas emis-
sion are largely overlooked. Besides environment, air transport also interacts with ground
transport, regional security and public health, which may in turn spill over into the
economy (Wan, Ha, Yoshida, & Zhang, 2016; Zhang, Graham, & Wong, 2018; Zhang, Wan,
& Yang, 2019). Therefore, an understanding of both positive and negative spillovers of
air transport is crucial to a comprehensive assessment of aviation economic impacts.

5. Gaps
From our review of the literature, we can point to some important research gaps that are
worth of exploration in the future.

5.1. In-depth causal analysis towards the driving factor


Section 3 shows that the existence of a bi-directional causal relationship between air trans-
port and economic performance largely depends on the development level of economy
and aviation market. Most studies establish results based on the Granger causality analysis.
However, there has been no rigorous answer to the condition under which each direction
of the casual relationship holds. The heterogeneity among regions or country-pairs is
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 15

investigated by, for example, Mukkala and Tervo (2013), Van De Vijver et al. (2014), and
Hakim and Merkert (2016) for Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South Asia, respectively. Even
though we can qualitatively infer from comparing available empirical results, the systema-
tic and quantitative analysis is needed to reveal the implicit cause of heterogeneity. Future
studies should seek to identify the underlying factor that drives the potentially inter-causal
relationship. The conditional causality can be investigated using Geweke (1984)’s
approach on relevant time varying covariates, such as foreign direct investment, trade,
competitiveness of substitutes, and government subsidy.

5.2. Sectoral feedback effects of economic growth on air traffic


It is shown in Section 2.2.3 and 3 that the magnitude and existence of feedback effects of
economic growth on air traffic vary across economies. There has been no sectoral specifi-
cation on either the existence or magnitude of the effect. In this regard, Brueckner (1985)
provides a hint that there may exist sectoral difference in the reverse linkage where econ-
omic growth affects air transport. There is established evidence for the sectoral difference
in the relation between general transport investment and productivity as shown in
Graham (2007), and in the spillover effects of air transport on economic performance as
shown in Table A1. Analogously, a thorough understanding of the feedback effects
requires comprehensive investigation in distinct sectors given the sectoral coverage of
the existing literature is far from complete.

5.3. Implications of airport expansion


Capacity expansion is a thorny issue faced by many major airports worldwide. Capacity
expansion at a congested airport would have a pervasive impact on the existing traffic
equilibrium in the aviation system (Brueckner, 2003; Oum, Zhang, & Zhang, 2004; Zhang
& Zhang, 2003, 2006, 2010). In the same spirit of assessing the supply-chain effects of exist-
ing aviation infrastructure, many have measured the impact of airport expansion using
input–output models (e.g. Batey et al., 1993; Norris & Golaszewski, 1990; Wan & Zhang,
2018). While a common challenge for the modelling practice along this line is to testify
the causal relationship, the competitive, responsive and dynamic nature of the aviation
market is hardly captured. Airlines can react differently to airport expansion which may
lead to various outcomes in the traffic equilibrium. The competition interactions among
intra- and inter-region rival airports are even more intriguing but are essential for strategic
planning and regulation of the aviation industry. We lack a systematic investigation in how
airport expansion initiates interactive effects in the context of inter-airport and airline com-
petition, which would ripple through the broad economy. From a planning perspective, it
is also important to examine the opportunity cost of infrastructure investments and scru-
tinise other options that may have larger multiplier effects.

5.4. Agglomeration and network spillovers of air transport


The spatial economies literature has established links between general transport infra-
structure investment and agglomeration (Graham, 2007; Venables, 2007). In the context
of air transport, the available evidence has shown that an airport’s local impact includes
16 F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM

attracting business investment and raising productivity at the aggregate level (Kasarda,
2000, 2008; Warffemius, 2007; Zhang, 2012). Air transport is a network business, and
hence connections will reinforce each other: more and better connections increase an air-
port’s attractiveness for others to connect. However, in some circumstances, the presence
of agglomeration economies may lead to a “siphon effect” (De Almeida, Haddad, &
Hewings, 2010; Graham & Guyer, 1999; Zhang, Wan, & Yang, 2019). That is, resources,
such as talents and investment, tend to flow from small cities to large cities, as the
latter possess better infrastructure, greater variety of products and services, a larger
market, and many other factors that improve efficiency of doing business. It is important
to improve our understanding of aviation-induced redistribution of economic activities
and uncover the potential siphon effect of air service accessibility.

6. Conclusions
This paper reviews the literature on links between air transport and the economy, focusing
in particular on our current understanding of the causal relationship.
The mechanisms through which air transport interacts with the economy are firstly ident-
ified. We find the key relationships are fundamentally endogenous. Despite this recognition,
much of the literature has simply sought to establish associational inference between air
traffic and economic performance, and issues of causality have often been overlooked.
For instance, the use of economic multipliers in estimation of supply-chain effects, or the
application of income elasticities in air traffic forecasts, is largely justified on the basis of
an a-priori assumptions that there is a causal effect from air transport to economic growth.
Specifically, the review leads to several new insights on the nature of aviation-economy
effects.
First, the relationship between air transport and the economy is bi-directional. While a
bi-directional causal relationship appears to be prevalent in less developed economies,
studies of countries with mature aviation markets tend to find positive effects from air
transport to economic growth but not vice-versa.
Second, causal effects from air transport to the economy can arise both through supply-
chain and spillover effects. Estimates of the effect of air passenger on service-related
employment lie between 0.1 and 0.2 but no obvious relationship is found between air pas-
senger movements and goods-related employment.
Third, in many instances, income elasticities are used to forecast air travel demand
across different economic contexts. However, the reviewed evidence suggests that the
underlying assumption of this approach may not always hold, i.e. the nature of feedback
effect can vary across economies and may change over time.
Finally, it is important to recognise that there are market imperfections that can impede
success in securing adequate air transport to facilitate economic development. To this end,
this paper reviews ancillary work related to the typical market imperfections and briefly
illustrates how these imperfections affect the economic efficiency of air transport.
It is noteworthy that air transport and economic growth are both broad topics that
include numerous aspects. This review, by focusing on the nature of the causal link, has
several limitations. First, this paper only considers commercial aviation services while
the roles of air transport in defence and extreme circumstances are not covered;
Second, the impact mechanism focuses on the interrelationship between air transport
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 17

and economy. While there are complex dynamics within either the aviation or economic
system, the internal impacts are not discussed. Third, the conceptual model reflects static
relationships while the competitive, responsive and dynamic nature of the aviation market
is not captured.

Notes
1. A link indicates a recognised influence where the impact elasticity can be large or small. Figure 1
omits the complex dynamics within the economic system, which is out of the scope of this
study.
2. In general, demand and supply interact with one another through decisions of consumers and
producers. There is no arrow pointing from “demand” to “supply” in Figure 1 because the pro-
ducers (airports and airlines) are involved. Presumably consumers cannot directly change the
supply and thus we consider that the impact of demand on supply takes effect only through
producers’ decisions.
3. The two channels are in fact interrelated, as usually where there is higher demand provides
larger capacity. Relevant studies on this issue are tentatively classified into the two channels
according to the emphasis of the research.
4. Although the income distribution among population is an important factor for decisions
related to airport capacity, it is often overlooked in income elasticity estimations.
5. There is a third stream that finds a reversed uni-directional causal relationship from economic
growth to air transport (Fernandes & Pacheco, 2010). Given that Fernandes and Pacheco
(2010) use the same dataset and same method as Marazzo et al. (2010), results published in
a higher-ranked journal with significantly higher impact factor are selected, i.e. Marazzo
et al. (2010). Thus, the last stream is omitted in the following discussion.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant
Airport Capacity Consequences Leveraging Aviation Integrated Modelling.

ORCID
Fangni Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3584-4679

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Appendices

22
Appendix 1. A summary of studies that examined the spillover effects of air transport on sectoral economic performance

F. ZHANG AND D. J. GRAHAM


See Table A1.

Table A1. Studies examined the spillover effects of air transport on sectoral economic growth.
Studied enabling flow (denoted by Peer-reviewed journal & Impact factor 2018
Article y2  y 1 ) The elasticity of y1 with respect of y2 Study unit & period (CiteScore 2018)
Pooled Service-related
sectors Goods-related sectors sectors
Irwin and Kasarda Network centrality Emp 0.429 0.513 (manufacturing) 0.505 (producer US 1950-1980 American Sociological Rev. 5.391 (7.060)
(1991) service)
Brueckner (2003) Pax Emp 0.08 0 (goods) 0.1 (service) US 1996 Urban Studies 3.272 (3.890)
Green (2007) Pax  Emp 0.028 – – US 1990 Real Estate Econ. 1.764 (2.05)
Cargo volume  Emp 0
Percoco (2010) Pax Emp 0.024 – 0.052 (service) Italy 2002 Urban Studies 3.272 (3.890)
Sellner and Nagl (2010) Pax/Pop  GDP 0.014 – – EU-15 1993–2006 Journal of Air Transp. Mgmt. 2.412 (3.27)
Pax/Pop investment 0.05
Marazzo et al. (2010) Pax  GDP 0.0325 – – Brazil 1966–2006 Transp. Res. Part E 4.253 (5.50)
Sheard (2014) Airport capacity  Emp 0 0 (manufacturing) 0.22 (tradable US 2007 Journal of Urban Econ. 2.447 (3.29)
service);
0 (non-tradable
service)
Baker et al. (2015) Pax  income 0.01 – – Australia 1985– Journal of Transp. Geography 3.560 (4.41)
2011
Bilotkach (2015) FlightsWage 0.01 – – US 1993–2009 Urban Studies 3.272 (3.890)
Destinations Wage 0.02
Destinations Emp 0.013
Destinations Businesses 0.01
Blonigen and Cristea Pax Pop 0.031 – – US 1966–1991 Journal of Urban Econ. 2.447 (3.29)
(2015)
Tveter (2017) New airport(0-1)  Pop 0.05 – – Norway 1970–1980 Research in Transp. Econ. 1.798 (2.20)
Gibbons & Wu (2019) Airport access  Output (GDP) 0.2591 0.4164 (manufacturing) 0 China 2001–2010 Journal of Econ. Geography 3.359 (5.04)
Sheard (2019) Airport capacity Emp 0.04 – – US 1991–2015 Economica 1.5 (1.87)
Button et al. (1999) Hub airport (0-1)  Emp 0.503 (high-technology)# US 1994 Journal of Air Transp. Mgmt. 2.412 (3.27)
Button and Taylor Pax Emp 0.0015 (new-economy)## US 1996 Journal of Air Transp. Mgmt. 2.412 (3.27)
(2000)
Note: Pax = Passengervolume; Emp = Employment; Pop = Popolation; PC = PerCapita. Coefficients represent elasticities, for example, 0.429 in the first row means that 1% growth in network cen-
trality results to 0.429% growth in employment. # in second last row represents that the existence of a hub airport increases high-technology employment by 50.3%. ## in last row indicates that 1.5
jobs are created in new-economy sectors for every 1,000 air passengers.
TRANSPORT REVIEWS 23

Appendix 2. A summary of studies that examined the income elasticity of


air transport demand
See Table A2.

Table A2. Studies examined the income elasticity of air transport demand.
Peer-reviewed journal &
Demand Income Study unit& Impact factor 2018
Article Elasticity measure measure period (CiteScore 2018)
Brueckner 0.82–1.16 Regional Income per US 1970 International J. of Transp.
(1985) passenger capita Econ. 0.857 (0.56)
Oum et al. 0.163 Passenger Total income US 1981–1988 J. of Transp. Econ. & Policy
(1993) (JTEP) 1.027 (1.62)
Graham (2000) 2.2–2.5 International Consumer UK 1970–1998 J. of Air Transp. Mgmt.
leisure trip expenditure 2.412 (3.27)
Dargay and 1–2 International Real disposal UK 1989–1998 –
Hanly (2001) passenger income/trade
Njegovan 1.5 Passenger Consumer UK 1993–2003 J. of Air Transp. Mgmt.
(2006b) expenditure 2.412 (3.27)
IATA (2007) 1.6–1.8 (US); 1.2– Passenger GDP Worldwide –
1.6 (UK); 1.8–2.7 1994–2006
(Developing
countries)
Chi and Baek 3.74 Passenger Disposable US 1995–2010 Transp. Res. Part E 4.253
(2012a) income (5.50)
Chi and Baek 9.35 (cargo) Cargo GDP US 1996–2010 J. of Air Transp. Mgmt.
(2012b) 2.412 (3.27)
Yao and Yang 0.77–1.12 (cargo) Cargo GDP China 1995– Asia Pacific J. of Accounting
(2012) 2006 & Econ.
DfT (2013) 1.5 Passenger Consumer UK 1984–2008 –
expenditure
Lakew (2015) 0.32 (Passenger); Passenger/ Wage US 2003–2012 Transportation Research
0.26 (Cargo) Cargo Record 0.748 (1.11)
Lo et al. (2015) 0.29–1.47 Cargo GDP Hong Kong Transp. Res. Part A 3.693
2001–2013 (4.98)
Bourguignon 1–2 Passenger GDP Worldwide (by –
and Darpeix continents)
(2016) 1994–2013

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