# **_4.3 Selected variables_**

First, to assess local residents’ perception of and satisfaction with the project, the survey asks how each household benefited in the following domains: access to health, access to schools, access to work, and ease of personal travel.

To measure improved physical accessibility, two measurements are considered: distance to a certain destination, and travel time required to reach it. Although the former may measure a more direct outcome of the project, the latter may be affected by other factors, such as available modes of transportation. Trips with the following four destinations are examined: populated area, municipal center, health center, and elementary school.

In theory, improved accessibility is expected to increase <u>demand for transport. To measure such</u> effects, the frequency of trips with the following five basic purposes is examined: purchasing food, purchasing other goods, going to work, doing business, and visiting friends and relatives. Improved accessibility is also expected to change people’s transport behavior. Although the provision of public bus service normally depends on a policy or regulatory decision, the regularity of public transport services may be improved thanks to improved road accessibility. As a result, the number of people using public buses may increase. The individual motorcycle and vehicle ownership rate may increase directly due to better road conditions and indirectly due to income increases resulting from improved transport accessibility. This, in turn, may result in increased numbers of people using cars to reach particular places.

To capture longer-term economic and social benefits, the following impacts are considered: Improved accessibility may increase school attendance, although such an impact may be difficult to observe in the present case, given the low level of school non-attendance due to difficult transport conditions even before the project’s launch (as mentioned above and shown in Table 3). <u>Health conditions are also expected to improve in the long run. Although it is recognized that survey</u> respondents did not generally consider transport to be a critical constraint when they visit hospitals, according to the baseline survey (Table 3) the level of difficulty in reaching a hospital due to road conditions is factored in, along with the number of sick household members. The reduction in travel time may <u>increase competitiveness because people may use saved time for more productive</u> activities. Improved rural accessibility may also allow farmers to sell their agricultural products more easily in the market, and may result in <u>job creation</u> in the agricultural sector. Moreover, new businesses, such as retailers and agro-businesses, may also be fostered.

Finally, household income was examined in order to evaluate the intervention’s overall development <u>impact.</u><sup>16</sup> All of the direct and indirect benefits mentioned above are expected to contribute to improving these rural populations’ welfare, which is theoretically measured by household consumption. Although household consumption is generally difficult to gauge, household income was used as a proxy for welfare improvement. The summary statistics of all these variables are presented in Table 4 below.

**Table 4: Summary statistics of outcome variables (baseline data)**

|Bico do Papagaio &||
|---|---|
|<br>Southeast|Jalapão & Northeast|
|Obs. Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max.|Obs. Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max.|

**Perceptions of benefits** (measured as the proportion of households perceiving benefits out of

> 16 The household income variable in the follow-up survey is adjusted to the 2005 price, using consumer price indices of

> 1.340 and 1.412 in 2011 and 2012, respectively. In the data obtained, there is no other variable in nominal terms.

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