The impact of improvement in public transportation: evidence from the Tokyo metropolitan area

This study examines the effect of improvement in public transportation on population and employment distribution in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Using an instrumental variable, my analysis reveals two noteworthy features, as follows: (1) capacity expansion by duplex line cause suburbanization of both population and employment, contrarily, new line by construction of train station have only negative effect on both population and employment distribution in suburb area, and no effect on ether population and employment in central city and subcenter. (2) in the central city, employment in insurance and real estate is decreasing, while it is increasing in sales because of capacity expansion.