Tom Petersen's homepage

(permanently under reconstruction)

About work: Since 2000, I am doing research with my supervisors, professor Lars Lundqvist and Anders Karlström on the regional effects of the Öresund fixed link (bridge and tunnel) on transport, location and economic performance in the Öresund region -- the southernmost part of Sweden (Scania) with the third largest city of Sweden, Malmö, and Eastern Denmark, with the metropolis Copenhagen. The full project was concluded in 2004, and it also included studies of regional development using SCGE, input-output and Carlino-Mills models (Marcus Sundberg, Christer Anderstig), interviews with decision-makers (Björn Hårsman and Bo Wijkmark) and stated-preference studies of firms and households (Folke Snickars, Knut Bernotat), as well as studies of the development of crime rates using spatial econometrics and GIS (Vania Ceccato). A summary in Swedish of the results until 2004 can be downloaded. After 2004, I continued with my parts -- transport modelling, and accessibility/productivity studies using panel data. A project homepage of this later project is maintained. 

The research is financed by the VINNOVA, the Swedish National Road Administration (Vägverket) and the Swedish National Rail Administration (Banverket). 

Other projects at my division, Transport and Location Analysis, are presented here.

In one project, I use a panel dataset on single firms which I analyse with parametric panel data techniques and non-parametric propensity score matching. The research is associated with the "public capital hypothesis", although the micro approach calls for a different theoretical approach than the regional production function. So far, I have estimated a translog cost function for 24 industries and tested these industries for accessibility dependence (which I have not found). Because for the infrastructure variable, instead of infrastructure capital stock or public expenses, I use accessibility, calculated from the new Swedish national model for personal transport demand, SAMPERS (Beser and Algers, 2002, in National Transport Models, Springer). Accessibility, I think, better reflects the services gained from infrastructure.

The other project aims at collecting data from transport models, travel behaviour surveys, geographic data etc., for a before-and-after database, in order to perform so-called external validation on models of transport demand, transport/land-use and transport/land-use/environment interaction, according to a study by the ISGLUTI group (Webster, Bly and Paulley, 1988) and Lundqvist and Mattsson (the introductory chapter of National Transport Models, Springer, 2002). 

Last autumn (2004), I worked together with Erik Jenelius and professor Lars-Göran Mattsson on a project about vulnerability in the road transport network in Norrland (the North of Sweden). It resulted in a paper that has been accepted by Transportation Research A: "Importance and exposure in road network vulnerability analysis".

Below are some papers and presentations for download. My ERSA papers (2003 and 2004) are also available from IDEAS/RePeC.

Licentiate thesis and defense

My licentiate thesis Modelling transport, accessibility and productivity in Öresund can be downloaded in full here (zipped pdf-files, 3.5 Mb). It was defended on May 14, 2004, at KTH, Stockholm. The presentation (in Swedish) can be viewed or downloaded as well.

It consists of three papers: 

1. Petersen, T. (2004). "The impact of accessibility on cost: A microdata panel approach"
2. Petersen, T. (2004). "Estimating the link between accessibility and productivity with propensity score matching"
3. Petersen, T. (2004). "Modelling cross-border transport in Öresund: Scenario assumptions, model results and a before-and-after database"

A general introduction is also included. See also at the KTH library or via the DIVA portal (with metadata), but these links only offer the general introduction for download.

Conference papers

Petersen, T. (2003) A propensity score matching method for the link between accessibility and productivity. Paper presented at the 43rd European Congress of the Regional Science Association (ERSA) in Jyväskylä, Aug 27-30.

Petersen, T. (2004) Modelling cross-border transport: Three cases in Öresund. Paper presented at the 44th European Congress of the Regional Science Association (ERSA) in Porto, Aug 25-29.

Petersen, T. (2004) Accessibility and productivity: A cost function microdata panel approach. Paper presented at the CESIS PhD conference Innovation, entrepreneurship and growth, KTH, Stockholm, Nov 18-20.

Conference presentations

ERSA Jyväskylä, 2003: Propensity score matching

ERSA Porto, 2004: Cross-border transport models

SUSS (Summer University of Southern Stockholm) Sep 23-24, 2004: Tillgänglighet och produktivitet i Öresund (Accessibility and productivity in Öresund, in Swedish). Presentation for the course & conference Transport Infrastructure Strategies for Polycentric Developments in Northern Europe, 

CESIS, KTH, Nov 18-20, 2004: Accessibility and productivity

VTI Transportforum, Linköping 2005, Jan 12-13: Tillgänglighet och produktivitet i Skåne före Öresundsbron (Accessibility and productivity in Skania before the Öresund fixed link, in Swedish). Some extra slides are here.

VTI Transportforum, Linköping 2006, Jan 11-12: Utsatthet och betydelse i sårbarhetsanalyser av vägnät:
En fallstudie av norra Sverige (Exposure and importance in road network vulnerability analysis: A case study of Northern Sweden).