An Economic Analysis of the Good Roads Movement in the 20th Century
- ISBN-10
- 126776077X
- ISBN-13
- 9781267760777
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2012
- Author
- Jason W. Lee
Description
Chapter 1: The Road to Development: Empirical Evidence of the Effect of Roads on the U.S. Economy, 1904-1921. A cross-sectional county data set is created, using decennial census data and rural road data published by the Office of Public Roads, to analyze the effect of road infrastructure investment on U.S. aggregate output. Estimates of output elasticity with respect to road input are calculated utilizing a translog production function. Elasticity estimates range between -0.069 and 0.209. The results show that road capital had a small but positive effect on aggregate output in developing states with poor initial road networks. However, in states with a relatively high level of road infrastructure, additional spending on roads had a negative effect on aggregate output. The results suggest that investment in road spending is most effective in regions with a paucity of good roads. Chapter 2: The Political Economy of the Rural Roads in the Early 20th CenturyLocal expenditures on the rural roads in the United States increased dramatically in the first two decades of the 20th century. By 1920, total expenditures on roads and bridges were on par with total spending on public education. This study examines the determinants of road demand, as measured by levels of local road expenditures, using county-level expenditure data from road surveys conducted by the Office of Public Roads. The results indicate that increased amounts of state-aid on roads was associated with increased local road expenditures in the Mountain/Pacific region, but had relatively little effect in the North Atlantic and North Central regions. This suggests that state-aid may have been viewed as complementary with local road expenditures in the Mountain/Pacific region. The paper also found that the presence of farmers led to asignificant reduction in the amount of local road expenditure. The opposition by farmers may explain a significant amount of the observed variation in local road expenditures across counties. Chapter 3: Paving the Way To Educational Success: Road Improvement and School Outcomes, 1900-1920In the early twentieth century, U.S. consolidated schools were a key to improved educational attainment. However, consolidated schools would not have been possible without the necessary road improvements to transport rural students to distant centralizedschools. Here I show that road improvements explain 10 percent of the observed change in the fraction of rural schools consolidated in the Midwest. I also measure roads direct impact on educational outcomes. While roads had a modest effect on school attendancerates, I find that roads can explain a significant portion of the observed rise in the average number of days attended per pupil and teacher quality. There was thus a significant social externality associated with investments in road capital in the early U.S. in the form of better educational outcomes.
