Impact Analyses of Construction of Kansai International Airport

Abstract

Socioeconomic impacts of construction of the Kansai International Airport of Japan are investigated for not only the whole Kansai region but also for the airport peripheral districts. The airport is being constructed on the island of about 500 hectare which is being made by land reclamation in the southern coast of the Osaka Bay. Based on the investment on the construction of the airport and the jobs created by its operation, macroscopic economic effects on the whole region are estimated by using a regional macro econometric model and an inputoutput model. The estimated results are used for the exogenous variables of a multi‐regional socioeconomic simulation model (OURS model). In OURS model, the region is divided into 120 zones and the industry is divided into 46 sectors. Population is treated by sex and by 5 year age groups, and the land use is divided into 7 use categories. The changes in these fundamental socioeconomic variables caused by locating the airport are forecast for each zone. It has been ascertained that many important findings can be obtained from the simulation results which are helpful to various regional policy making that will lead to the desirable future development plan for each zone.