Are rural road investments alone sufficient to generate transport flows ? lessons from a randomized experiment in rural Malawi and policy implications

Gaël Raballand (), Rebecca Thornton, Dean Yang, Jessica Goldberg, Niall Keleher and Annika Muller

No 5535, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper draws lessons from an original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was subsidized over a six-month period over a distance of 20 kilometers to serve five villages. Using randomly allocated prices for use of the bus, this experiment demonstrates that at very low prices, bus usage is high. Bus usage decreases rapidly with increased prices. However, based on the results on take-up and minibus provider surveys, the experiment demonstrates that at any price, low (with high usage) or high (with low usage), a bus service provider never breaks even on this road. This can contribute to explain why walking or cycling is so widespread on most rural roads in Sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of policy implications, this experiment explains that motorized services need to be subsidized; otherwise a road in good condition will most probably not lead to provision of service at an affordable price for the local population.

Keywords: Transport Economics Policy&Planning; Transport in Urban Areas; Urban Transport; Markets and Market Access; Rural Roads&Transport (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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