The Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB) has published the IEB Report 1/2022 “Cities and Congestion”. Coordinated by Anna Matas, professor of economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the document discusses the fundamental role that cities play in economic growth, but then goes on to analyse the negative consequences of these agglomerations.

Congestion, environmental pollution and accidents are some of the issues that require action in order to reduce their negative effects. This is the focus of this IEB document, written by professors Antonio Russo (Loughborough University, UK), Jos van Ommeren (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Maria Börjesson (Linköping University, Sweden) and Daniel Albalate and Xavier Fageda (University of Barcelona, Spain).

The three articles that comprise this report apply different perspectives to the analysis of the problem of congestion in cities. Russo and Van Ommeren provide data on the costs of congestion and discuss the effectiveness of policies that governments can adopt to address it. Börjesson highlights the fundamental role of transport in guaranteeing accessibility in urban areas. Albalate and Fageda focus on the relationship between congestion and the occurrence of accidents, an extremely important phenomenon.