Freight transport and economic growth : an empirical explanation of the coupling in the EU using panel data

The link between transport and economic growth is nowadays understood behind the so-called issue of coupling. Transport intensity or transport elasticity to economic production are generally used to assess the link. In this paper, road freight intensity is decomposed into four factors. A European panel data estimation of these four factors isolates levels of coupling and levels of decoupling. We observe two factors of coupling (i. e. the rise of the average distance of transport and the increasing market share of road transport) and two factors of decoupling (the decreasing share of the industry in the economic production and the decreasing weight of industrial production). (Author's abstract)