Does money matter for infrastructure outcomes? The effects of public infrastructure finance on state infrastructure quality

The American Review of Public Administration

2017

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In the United States, despite record levels of public infrastructure spending, evidence on rising traffic congestion and deteriorating infrastructure condition raises questions about the efficiency of government infrastructure spending. This research aims at empirically assessing and explaining the relative efficiency in producing public highway infrastructure outcomes among American states. To achieve this purpose, a semiparametric analysis-the two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis method-is applied to examine how highway infrastructure efficiency scores can be estimated and explained by a number of exogenous variables among 47 American states from 1995 to 2009. This study finds that there is a large efficiency variation among states in terms of producing quality highway infrastructure services. Furthermore, interstate competition, jurisdiction size, fiscal capacity, and political and fiscal institutions are the key factors influencing the efficiency performance of state highway infrastructure systems.

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Maximizing Efficiency in State Infrastructure Finance: The Role of Competition, Citizen Monitoring Capacity, and Institutions

The American Review of Public Administration

2017

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“…Current capital outlay depends upon past levels of capital investment decisions or existing capital stock (Chen 2017; Fisher and Wassmer 2015; Holtz-Eakin and Rosen 1989). Two common measures of capital stock are identified in the current literature.…”

Section: Determinant Of State and Local Capital Investmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Drives Municipal Capital Investment? A Long-panel Data Analysis of U.S. Central Cities

State and Local Government Review

Han

Frank

2019

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Cities across the United States are facing a severe infrastructure deficit. The challenge of financing infrastructure capital assets has emerged as one of the most urgent issues of the country. Using a panel data consisting of 100 American central cities from 1988 to 2012, this research reveals that city governments are responsive to sociodemographic forces and citizens’ demands, but their abilities to finance capital assets are constrained by city fiscal institutions and revenue capacity. This research also compares the determinants of different components of city capital outlays such as road and water utility capital expenditures.

“…They also note that price information makes a difference in determining amount WTP by serving as an anchor value and cognitive heuristic to moderate drivers' responses. Beyond new roads and bridges: understanding public preferences for investing in urban non-automobile transportation infrastructure The efficient allocation of limited government resources across different spending categories is a crucial element to improve the poor performance of American transportation infrastructure system (Chen, 2017). The article by O' Connell, Yusuf, and Anuar examines the factors influencing public preferences for four options of infrastructure investment priorities: repairing existing roads, bridges, and tunnels; constructing new or expanding roads, bridges, and tunnels; expanding mass transit; and expanding bicycle routes and improving bike safety.…”

Section: Summary Of the Articles In This Symposiummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Geddes, 2011;Winston, 2013). These inefficiencies include inefficient infrastructure pricing, which fails to charge infrastructure users in line with the social costs they incur (Winston, 2013); the diversion of a significant amount of highway user fees for non-highway purposes, which breaks the link between highway taxes paid and benefits received from road uses (Goel and Nelson, 2003); the failure to fund projects with the highest returns due to many politically earmarked projects (Geddes, 2011;Sciara, 2012;Winston, 2013); political corruption in capital project construction (Liu and Mikesell, 2014;Yan and Oum, 2014); the inefficient allocation of investment funds between maintenance and new expansion (Chen, 2017;Winston, 2013); and the regulations that 132 JPBAFM 30,2…”

Section: Key Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public infrastructure finance: symposium introduction

2018

JPBAFM

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Guest editorialPublic infrastructure finance: symposium introduction Introduction and overview Infrastructure is the foundation of modern economies and societies. A robust, efficient, and well-maintained infrastructure system is critical to support and sustain the nation's economy, improve quality of life, and strengthen global competitiveness. However, as widely publicized, the US public infrastructure system is facing serious challenges including insufficient capacity, deteriorating physical conditions, delayed maintenance, and declining fiscal resources (