Metro infrastructure and metropolitan attractiveness

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether cities can improve their international attractiveness by investing in their public transport infrastructure. For this purpose, we examine the influence of a metro shock on the number of greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) projects received by a city during the period 2003–2014. We find that cities which have invested in expanding their metro network have attracted, on average, more FDI than comparable cities which have not improved their urban transport infrastructure.