Cross-Border Population Accessibility and Regional Growth: An Irish Border Region Case-Study

This paper calculates and maps relative population accessibility indices at a national and regional level for the island of Ireland over the period 1991-2002 and assesses whether the changing nature of the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland as it becomes more porous has impacted on the growth of the Irish border region over that time period. A spatial econometric analysis is the undertaken to assess the economic consequences of increased economic integration between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Neoclassical β-convergence regression analysis is employed, with the population accessibility indices used to capture the changing nature of the Irish border. 1 The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP), the International Centre for Cross Border Studies (ICLRD), and the All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO). The authors also wish to thank Morton O’Kelly for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper and Peter Foley for his excellent research assistance.