This paper will report on an analysis of government spending on road and transportation improvements and the resulting record of economic development around the world. The research question specifically addresses the needs and opportunities for a country, such as Poland, where the roads and transportation systems are grossly inadequate with respect to a significant contribution to the mobility of trade and resultant development. By studying country-level data sets concerning government spending on transportation infrastructure over the past twenty years, the study will correlate economic development in terms of GDP and FDI to determine the relationship to net economic impact.

For manufacturing-based economies, the road, rail, water-borne, and air transport systems have a direct relationship to moving finished goods to market and raw materials to manufacturing sites.  For service economies, the transportation of workers may be as important if not more important than the mobility system for goods and raw materials. This speaks to mass transit pertaining to jobs and employment. For knowledge-based economies, the mobility of electronic means of transportation is a key ingredient for economic development. This might include the transmittal over the Internet of X-rays or radiographs for skilled medical technicians and medical doctors to analyze, architectural or engineering drawings and calculations, music and literature for review or submission, and other work-products and resources of the creative classes of workers in the 21^st century. Speed and band-width are becoming increasingly important; not just the incidence of telephones per household or computer usage itself.

Yet the question of where a country should make major investments in infrastructure, where funds are limited, has not been analyzed sufficiently to inform decision-making specifically related to such topics of mobility. This paper will attempt to produce input-output metrics related to road-infrastructure investment, railroad transportation and local mass transit upgrades, and Internet, wireless and electronic communications including telephony and data transfer capacity to resulting economic development, job growth, countries’ gross domestic product, and attractiveness’ to direct foreign investment. It will focus on Eastern Europe as an opportunity frontier, the European Union as a funder and facilitator of development through investment, and other developing countries in comparison with the United States as comparison case studies.