Microeconometrics Seminar: Every Tuesday
Time: 12:15 pm – 13:30 pm
Date: 25th of January 2022
En visio
Federica DANIELE (Banca d’Italia) – “Bike-friendly cities: an opportunity for local businesses? Evidence from the city of Paris”

Abstract: Large cities are more and more interested in developing their bicycle infrastructure network. Yet, little is known about the economic impact of such developments and their asymmetric impact across space. We conduct an empirical evaluation of the impact of a large-scale infrastructure project, the construction of the Plan V´elo in the city of Paris, on local economic activity. We rely on geolocated data covering nearly the universe of French card transactions and estimate a positive and statistically significant elasticity of local revenues to bike market access. We also find that an increase in bike market access further benefits quality of life by triggering a reduction in car traffic, and that the reduction in transport costs and in the level of traffic are reflected into higher house prices. By focusing on the restaurants industry, we further show that the elasticity to bike market access is greater for restaurants belonging to the upper price segment. Overall, we find that the construction of the new bicycle network had a spatially uneven impact, with slightly more than half of the locations in the city featuring a cumulative net loss. By its radial structure, the network made businesses operating in central (and sparsely populated) locations gain at the expenses of businesses located in more peripheral (and densely populated) locations. With Mariona Segu, David Bounie, and Youssouf Camara.

Organizers:

Benoît SCHMUTZ (Pôle d’économie du CREST)
Anthony STRITTMATTER (Pôle d’économie du CREST)
Sponsors:
CREST