The relationship between road traffic accidents and real economic activity in Spain: common cycles and health issues

This paper analyses the aggregate relationships between traffic accidents and real economic activity in Spain during the last 30 years. Our general approach is based on two basic assumptions: (1) the number of accidents depends on the use of cars and other exogenous variables, and (2) the level of economic activity affects variation in the stock of cars, as well as degree of utilization. We propose a novel turning point characterization for monthly seasonal data that allows to check whether economic and road accident cycles coincide and, to date the beginning and end of their respective cycles. Empirical results from this section are important in establishing posterior causal models and whether or not economic activity and road accidents have a common component in the long run and a varying lead-lag relationship, depending on the cycles. These models will be the basis to check when Spain will achieve the European Union figures in terms of the fatalities/accidents ratio under different scenarios. Empirical results as well as historical experiences from other European countries proved that reducing fatalities is not only a question of diminishing accidents rates.