The impact of road development on Mawlamyine Township, Myanmar: Multiplier and optimization analyses

Abstract

This article has two objectives. The first, pragmatic objective is to generate recommendations as to how township and national planners can achieve higher growth through the development of transportation jobs and value added from the East-West Corridor and Asian Highways leading into and out of Mawlamyine Township, Myanmar. Although Mawlamyine is both small and labour- and capital-constrained, it is also the Western terminus of the East West Economic Corridor (EWEC) and lies close to the sea. It is thus critical to Myanmar’s overall growth to maximize Mawlamyine’s economic potential.

The second, methodological goal is to optimize a social accounting matrix (SAM) and to observe those results against standard matrix multiplier analysis. Original surveys and official secondary data are used to construct a pioneering 2009 social accounting matrix. SAM based multipliers are first checked to observe the sectors and institutions with the greatest income, employment, and poverty-alleviation impacts. Then, the SAM is subjected to constrained optimization problem to determine the optimal level of township income and to what extent transportation and/or other sectors should increase as a source of jobs and value added. Finally Policy and methodological recommendations are based upon all two types of results.