Party Connections, Interest Groups and the Slow Diffusion of Infrastructure: Evidence from Britain's First Transport Revolution

Dan Bogart

Economic Journal, 2018, vol. 128, issue 609, 541-575

Abstract: Economic and political interests often block or delay infrastructure improvements. This article examines their effects by studying Britain's river navigation improvements in the early 1700s – a subject of intense lobbying in parliament. It shows that stronger party connections and influence in neighbouring areas likely to oppose or support projects affected whether a town got a river navigation act. Their estimated effects are comparable to geography and town economic characteristics in magnitude and help explain whether towns were blocked from getting navigation improvements. The findings address institutions following the Glorious Revolution and broader issues concerning infrastructure, technology diffusion and political connections.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12432

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:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:609:p:541-575

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1111/(ISSN)1468-0297

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Estelle Cantillon, Martin Cripps, Andrea Galeotti, Morten Ravn, Kjell G. Salvanes, Frederic Vermeulen, Hans-Joachim Voth and Rachel Kranton

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().