Transportation Infrastructure in the US, ,This chapter is a preliminary draft unless otherwise noted. It may not have been subjected to the formal review process of the NBER. This page will be updated as the chapter is revised.
Chapter in forthcoming NBER book Economic Analysis and Infrastructure Investment, Edward L. Glaeser and James M. Poterba, editors Support for massive investments in transportation infrastructure, possibly with a change in the share of spending on transit, seems widespread. Such proposals are often motivated by the belief that our infrastructure is crumbling, that infrastructure causes economic growth, that current funding regimes disadvantage rural drivers at the expense of urban public transit, or that capacity expansions will reduce congestion. In fact, most us transportation infrastructure is not deteriorating and the existing scientific literature does not show that infrastructure creates growth or reduces congestion. However, current annual expenditure on public transit buses exceeds that on interstate construction and maintenance. The evidence suggests high returns to a careful examination of how funding is allocated across modes, but does not suggest high returns to massive new expenditures. This paper is available as PDF (1397 K) or via email
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX This chapter first appeared as NBER working paper w27254, Transportation Infrastructure in the US, Gilles Duranton, Geetika Nagpal, Matthew TurnerCommentary on this chapter: Comment, Stephen J. Redding |
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