Evaluation of transport infrastructure projects beyond cost-benefit analysis. An application to Barcelona's 4^th ring rad

The paper carries out an economic evaluation of Barcelona's fourth ring road with a combination of two types of analyses: a cost-benefit evaluation and an estimation of the macroeconomic effects due to the construction and operation of the infrastructure. This allows us to complement the use of CBA techniques with the quantification of the effects that, both regional and nationally, the new road can be expected to generate. Our results show that the social rate or return of the investment is below the usual 6% benchmark, although they are relatively sensitive to changes in the monetary value assigned to travel time savings. As regards the economic impact on other variables, the investment has a relatively important effect on GDP and employment, particularly in the tertiary sector, without significatively crowding out private investment. (JEL classification) R15, R42.