The spatial economic effects of airport de-hubbing: the Milan case

This chapter deals with the impact of a specific category of airports, namely hubs that are global in the nature. Transport infrastructures are considered to be key policy tools for promoting local development, and in the age of increasing demand for moving people around the globe, aviation and airports are widely viewed as essential ingredients in driving the success and prosperity of cities and metropolises. In particular, in the next section, we discuss the more literature on de-hubbing events as types of natural experiments to study the relevance of airport hubs for local development. The chapter discusses the literature on the effect of de-hubbing on the local economy, starting from the evidence that the de-hubbing of Malpensa airport has altered the possibilities of international interaction of the surrounding area. A shock to air accessibility, as the one imposed by de-hubbing, negatively affects firm productivity in the surrounding area and this, in turn, affects employment, wages, and housing rents.