Food industry, agriculture and rural economy responding to the infrastructure improvements in South Ostrobothnia.

摘要

This paper studies the impacts of infrastructure improvements on agriculture and the food industry in the Finnish region of South Ostrobothnia. Simultaneously, the effects on the regional economy and its rural and urban parts are considered. The rural-urban Social Accounting Matrix depicts the economic structure of the region and serves as base data for a Computable General Equilibrium model. Two shocks: efficiency improvement of the transportation sectors and a cut of the transportation costs of all sectors were carried out. The results suggest that all the measures that intensify infrastructure are favourable for the food industry and agriculture in South Ostrobothnia such that on average these industries gained relatively higher benefits compared with the local industries. The results further indicate that especially the efficiency improvements of the transportation sectors boost the local economy. However, a decision needs to be made whether the attained benefits should be allocated to the urban centre and service sectors with higher total benefits to the region, or to the rural area and primary and exporting secondary sectors.