Mariona Segú (THEMA) wil present "Bike-friendly cities : an opportunity for local businesses ? Evidence from the city of Paris"
Co-authored with Federica Daniele, David Bounie, and Youssouf Camara

Abstract :
Large cities are more and more interested in developing their bicycle
infrastructure network. Yet, little is known about the economic impact
of such developments and their asymmetric impact across space. We
conduct an empirical evaluation of the impact of a large-scale
infrastructure project, the construction of the Plan Vélo in the city of
Paris, on local economic activity. We rely on geolocated data of French
card transactions and estimate a positive and statistically significant
elasticity of local revenues to bike market access. We also find that an
increase in bike market access further benefits other indicators
associated with quality of life by triggering a reduction in car
traffic. The reduction in transport costs and in the level of traffic is
also reflected in higher house prices. By focusing on the restaurant
industry, we further show that the elasticity to bike market access is
greater for restaurants belonging to the upper price segment, a sign of
looming gentrification. Overall, we find that the construction of the
new bicycle network had a spatially uneven impact, with slightly more
than half of the locations in the city featuring a cumulative net loss.
By its radial structure, the network made businesses operating in
central (and sparsely populated) locations gain at the expense of
businesses located in more peripheral (and densely populated) locations.