Estimation of accessibility elasticities in connection with the Öresund fixed link using a panel of micro-data

The productivity of public infrastructure has been hte subject of jumerous studies during the last two decades, often with vastly differing results. Matters of concern for these estimates have been the level of aggregation of the data, the measurement of the infrastructure stock, and endogeneity bias. In an attempt to estimate the wider economic impacts of the Öresund fixed link, these issues are addressed by estimating production functions from firm data in Scania – the Swedish part of the Öresund region – using a novel method due to Olley and Pakes (1996), that takes endogenous input choices and self-selection into account. As a measure of the service provided by the infrastructure, accessibility to the workforce is used on a fine-grained geographic level. The sign and significance of the two sources of bias are tested, as well as the robustness of the acessibility parameter with respect to the specification of the barrier of trips across Öresund.