Bondemark, Anders, Andersson, Henrik and Brundell-Freij, Karin (2023) Do the distributional preferences of national infrastructure planners diverge from those of the public ? Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, vol. 170 (n° 103621).

Abstract

In this paper, we study how the distributional preferences of planners and the public diverge in the context of national infrastructure planning. To do so, we surveyed a sample of 323 planners working at the Swedish Transport Administration and 2,108 members of the Swedish public. The most striking difference is that planners place a relatively higher value on aggregate benefits than the public. Planners also place a significantly higher relative value on infrastructure plans that benefit rail transport compared to the public. It is our contention that planners value aggregate benefits relatively more highly because they have a better understanding of the attribute and because they have internalised the long-standing goal of an economically efficient Swedish transport sector.