Public Infrastructure and Wages: Public Capital's Role as a Productive Input and Household Amenity

Douglas Dalenberg and Mark Partridge

Land Economics, 1997, vol. 73, issue 2, 268-284

Abstract: Production function studies typically conclude that public capital plays little role in enhancing productivity. However, others have found that infrastructure and employment growth are positively related. These apparently conflicting results can be reconciled if public capital serves as a household amenity that increases labor supply without dramatically increasing productivity. This study examines the impact of public capital on wages in order to assess whether productivity or amenity effects dominate. For the economy as a whole, the results suggest that highway's strongest role is as a household amenity, however, for the manufacturing sector, the productivity effect of highways appears to dominate.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3147287
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

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:uwp:landec:v:73:y:1997:i:2:p:268-284

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Land Economics from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().