How the UK government plans to transform infrastructure performance this decade

Delivering transformational outcomes for Britain through infrastructure investment needs a revolution, says Nicholas Yandle of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. A new roadmap describes what civil engineers should be aiming for and the action required to get there.

Positive Spillovers from Infrastructure Investment: How Pipeline Expansions Encourage Fuel Switching

This paper studies the role of the U.S. pipeline infrastructure in the country's transition from coal to natural gas energy. I leverage the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards as a plausibly exogenous intervention, which encouraged many coal plants to convert to natural gas. Combining this quasi-experimental variation with a plant's preexisting proximity to the pipeline network, I isolate implied pipeline connection costs within a dynamic discrete choice model of plant conversions. Key model results indicate that infrastructure-related costs prevent $9 billion in emissions reductions from taking place, suggesting a $2.4 million per mile external benefit of pipeline expansions.

The Impact of Transport Infrastructure Investment on Energy Intensity: The Perspective of Fiscal Decentralization

Investment in China’s transport infrastructure has contributed to its rapid economic growth, which also consumes a great deal of energy and generates a significant amount of carbon emissions. In these circumstances, it is worthwhile to discuss the internal influence mechanisms behind these two outcomes’ similar growth trends. This paper selects panel data from 30 regions in China from 2009 to 2019 and uses the threshold spatial autoregressive (TSAR) model to analyze the impact of transport infrastructure investment on the energy intensity due to fiscal decentralization. While studies of the relationship between transport infrastructure investment and energy intensity exist, few studies examine the non-linear spatial relationship between the two. This paper fills this gap by using the TSAR Model. The results show the following: (1) the effect of transport infrastructure investment on the energy intensity under fiscal decentralization and heterogeneity expresses non-linear characteristic; (2) there is a positive relationship between infrastructure investment and energy intensity when the degree of attenuation is low, but when the degree of attenuation is higher than a particular threshold value, transport infrastructure investment negatively impacts energy intensity; (3) rising energy prices, increasing investment in technological innovation costs, and increasing foreign trade will help to drive the decline in energy intensity.

A Toolkit for Developing Effective Projects Under the Federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program

In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, now referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes multiple provisions related to conserving fish and wildlife. One of the most exciting elements of this historic legislation is a dedicated $350 million competitive grant program called the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. In order to assist eligible applicants and partners to understand and take advantage of these new funding and policy opportunities, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation’s Corridors & Crossings Program has created “A Toolkit for Developing Effective Projects Under the Federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.” The document provides: An overview of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program and other fish and wildlife provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, suggestions for how applicants and their partners can engage, best practices, examples, and resources for designing effective wildlife crossing projects in accordance with each of the grant application criterion of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.

Infrastructure investment and employment: Evidence for Portugal

We estimated how investment in 12 infrastructure types affects employment in Portugal. Using a vector-autoregressive specification at the industry level, we found a double dividend associated with ports and airports: investing in either delivers the greatest bang per euro, both on impact and in the long run. One million euros invested in ports and airports creates 717.1 and 290.5 jobs in the long run, respectively, and 535 and 253.3 jobs in the short run, respectively. Regarding long-term employment effects, these are followed by municipal roads, telecommunications, national roads, health structures, education facilities, refineries, railroads, and highways. Water infrastructures and electricity and gas infrastructures have negligible effects. With the long-term effects decomposed, sizable supply-side employment effects for health and education facilities exist, while demand-side effects dominate for airports, ports, municipal roads, and telecommunications. Employment following the investment in national roads is balanced across demand and supply channels. We found no significant employment-related location effects of infrastructure investments. Also, investing in either health facilities or in education buildings entails non-negligible job losses in the short run. These results suggest that the magnitude and the timing of job creation crucially depend on the type of infrastructure investment. Policymakers in Portugal need to be aware of this in choosing between countercyclical or structural targets.