Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Donaldson, Dave

doi:10.1257/aer.20101199

Cited by 1,126 publications

(674 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Overall, the evidence suggests that a well-developed transport infrastructure enhances trade (Donaldson, 2015;Duranton et al, 2013), promotes economic growth 4 See Head and Mayer (2004) for a review of this literature. (Banerjee et al, 2012;Duranton and Turner, 2012), and, at a more local level, increases property prices (Baum-Snow and Kahn, 2000;Gibbons and Machin, 2005).…”

Section: Introduction "A Major New High-speed Rail Line Will Generatementioning

confidence: 99%

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

Ahlfeldt

Feddersen

2017

Journal of Economic Geography

274

137

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We analyze the economic impact of the German high-speed rail (HSR) connecting Cologne and Frankfurt, which provides plausibly exogenous variation in access to surrounding economic mass. We find a causal effect of about 8.5% on average of the HSR on the GDP of three counties with intermediate stops. We make further use of the variation in bilateral transport costs between all counties in our study area induced by the HSR to identify the strength and spatial scope of agglomeration forces. Our most careful estimate points to an elasticity of output with respect to market potential of 12.5%. The strength of the spillover declines by 50% ever 30 minutes of travel time, diminishing to 1% after about 200 minutes. Our results further imply an elasticity of per-worker output with respect to economic density of 3.8%, although the effects seem driven by worker and firm selection.

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Section: Introduction "A Major New High-speed Rail Line Will Generatementioning

confidence: 99%

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

Ahlfeldt

Feddersen

2017

Journal of Economic Geography

274

137

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“…We then expect that, if d is a developing country, φ N > φ N should hold. 10 Next, suppose that we are able to construct an index α d ∈ [0, 1], measuring the extent to which the mine-to-coast transport infrastructure overlaps with the location of d's consumers (for example, with cities), and thus actually contributes to reducing their import costs. In the next section, we will construct this index in such as way as to exploit the location of mines as a source of exogenous variation.…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

From mine to coast: Transport infrastructure and the direction of trade in developing countries

Bonfatti

Poelhekke

2017

Journal of Development Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Mine-related transport infrastructure specializes in connecting mines to the coast, and not so much to neighboring countries. This is most clearly seen in developing countries, whose transport infrastructure was originally designed to facilitate the export of natural resources in colonial times. We provide first econometric evidence that mine-to-coast transport infrastructure matters for the pattern of trade of developing countries, and can help explaining their low level of regional integration. The main idea is that, to the extent that it can be used not just to export natural resources but also to trade other commodities, this infrastructure may bias a country's structure of transport costs in favor of overseas trade, and to the detriment of regional trade. We investigate this potential bias in the context of a gravity model of trade. Our main findings are that coastal countries with more mines import less than average from their neighbors, and this effect is stronger when the mines are located in such a way that the related infrastructure has a stronger potential to affect trade costs. Consistently with the idea that this effect is due to mine-to-coast infrastructure, landlocked countries with more mines import less than average from their non-transit neighbors, but more than average from their transit neighbors. Furthermore, this effect is specific to mines and not to oil and gas fields, arguably because pipelines cannot possibly be used to trade other commodities. We discuss the potential welfare implications of our results, and relate these to the debate on the economic legacy of colonialism for developing countries. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: F140, F540, Q320, R400.

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“…have a positive effect on some measures of economic development in some contexts" (Fisher 1997). Of the public services examined, transportation and infrastructure services show the strongest positive relationship with economic growth (Fisher 1997;Donaldson, forthcoming;Dinkelman 2011;Michaels 2008;Duflo and Pande 2007;Jensen 2007;Aker 2010). At the same time, many of these studies focus on a single partial equilibrium result.…”

Section: The Challenge Of Public Service Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Revolutions in Public Finance

2017

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Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Cited by 1,126 publications

References 66 publications

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

From mine to coast: Transport infrastructure and the direction of trade in developing countries

Digital Revolutions in Public Finance

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