Roman roads to prosperity: Persistence and non-persistence of public infrastructure

Carl-Johan Dalgaard, Nicolai Kaarsen, Ola Olsson and Pablo Selaya

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2022, vol. 50, issue 4, 896-916

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the link between public transport infrastructure investments made during antiquity and the presence of infrastructure today; as well as the link between early infrastructure and economic activity, both in the past and in the present. We examine the territory under dominion of the Roman Empire at the zenith of its geographical extension (117 CE), and find a remarkable pattern of persistence showing that greater Roman road density goes along with (a) greater modern road density, (b) greater settlement formation in 500 CE, and (c) greater economic activity in 2010–2020. Exploiting a natural experiment, we find that persistence in road density and the strong link between early road density and contemporary economic development weaken to the point of insignificance in areas where the use of wheeled vehicles was abandoned and caravan trade routes replaced road-based trade from the first millennium CE until the late modern period. Studying channels of persistence, we identify the emergence of market towns during the early medieval period and the modern era as a robust mechanism sustaining the persistent effects of the Roman roads network. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of the channels through which persistence in comparative development comes about.

Keywords: Roman roads; Roman empire; Public infrastructure; Persistence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596722000269
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:50:y:2022:i:4:p:896-916

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2022.05.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Comparative Economics is currently edited by D. Berkowitz and G. Roland

More articles in Journal of Comparative Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().