In 1998, the budgets of the Dutch Ministry of Transport and the Infrastructure Fund together amounted to 15 billion Dutch guilders. This was one of the largest budgets of the central government in the Netherlands. Rising travel demands and increases in public expenditures to finance new transport infrastructure play a prominent role in public debates. At the same time, there was limited information on the impact of this government expenditure. The key question is who benefits from the Transport budgets and by what amount. To determine who benefits and to estimate the size of the effects for different groups of beneficiaries, the Transport Ministry commissioned a study to analyse the financial budgets. The aims were firstly, to establish the profile of people and regions that profit from the budget and, secondly, to estimate to what extent these expenditures affect various groups as differentiated by type of household, socioeconomic class, geographical area and industrial sector. The analyses covered both passenger and freight transport. The study consisted of two parts. The first part was a literature study which provided the data to establish the financial streams, to identify the different groups that benefited and to formulate the analytical framework for assigning the expenditures to different groups. The second part involved an empirical interpretation of the results of the analyses, assigning the expenditures to the diverse groups that benefit.
Abstract