Grand Paris Express: impact on the international attractiveness of Paris

 

Société du Grand Paris has launched a series of academic projects aimed at informing investments in public infrastructure over the period 2012-2019 (€ 22.6 billion). In this context, the LIEPP obtained a research budget to examine two questions: the location of businesses on the one hand; the link between housing, jobs and land rent on the other hand. This three-year work began in the spring of 2014.

Two complementary projects have emerged to evaluate:

• the impact of Grand Paris Express on labour and housing markets (more information)
• the impact of Grand Paris Express on the international attractiveness of Paris.

Team members:

Pierre-Henri BONO (LIEPP)
Quentin DAVID (Université de Lille 1)
Rodolphe DESBORDES (Université de Strathclyde)
Loriane PY (Banque de France)

Description

The French government has undertaken to significantly expand the transport networks serving the capital city by the construction of 200 km of subway lines, which will aim at extending existing lines or creating new ones. This subway project is called Grand Paris Express (GPE) and the company in charge of its implementation is the Société du Grand Paris (SGP).

GPE should favor agglomeration economy by increasing the concentration of economic agents on the territory. The proximity of economic actors is supposed to stimulate their productivity, provided that congestion phenomena do not exceed positive externalities. In particular, such an investment must make it possible to improve the attractiveness of multinational firms. Parallel to the economic activity they directly create, multinational firms tend to have a catalytic effect on the growth of the local industrial fabrics and on the creation of jobs. Therefore they are often perceived as contributing to the dynamism of cities. In this context, the Société du Grand Paris has commissioned Sciences Po's Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Public Policy Evaluation (LIEPP) to evaluate the impact of Grand Paris Express on the attractiveness of the Paris agglomeration for foreign direct investment.

To measure the impact of metro systems on the attractiveness of cities, we have built a database of global influence whose basic unit is the urban area. We use different estimation techniques to reveal the link between the presence and the size of a metro system with the number of foreign direct investment projects (FDI). 

Publications

Report, "Impact du Grand Paris Express sur la localisation des investissements directs étrangers" by Pierre-Henri Bono, Quentin David, Rodolpho Desbordes, and Loriane Py, December 2017.

Policy Brief, "Métros et attractivité internationale des villes", December 2017.

In the media

Article in Le Monde December 28, 2017: "Le Grand Paris Express attirera-t-il des capitaux étrangers?" 

Article on the website of FNTP January 3, 2018: "Les réseaux de métro déterminants de l'attractivité internationale des villes"

Article in Le journal du Grand Paris January 9, 2018: "Le Grand Paris express facteur d’attractivité des investissements étrangers"