The Average and Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Investments: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa 1960-2010

Remi Jedwab and Adam Storeygard

No 27670, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Previous work on transportation investments has focused on average impacts in high- and middle-income countries. We estimate average and heterogeneous effects in a poor continent, Africa, using roads and cities data spanning 50 years in 39 countries. Using changes in market access due to distant road construction as a source of exogenous variation, we estimate a 30-year elasticity of city population with respect to market access of about 0.08–0.13. Our results suggest that this elasticity is stronger for small and remote cities, and weaker in politically favored and agriculturally suitable areas. Access to foreign cities besides international ports matters little. Additional evidence points suggestively to rural-urban migration as the primary source of this population increase, though we cannot fully rule out natural increase or reallocation across cities.

JEL-codes: F15 F16 O18 O20 R11 R12 R4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: DEV ITI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published as Rémi Jedwab & Adam Storeygard, 2022. "The Average and Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Investments: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa 1960–2010," Journal of the European Economic Association, vol 20(1), pages 1-38.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27670.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Average and Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Investments: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa 1960–2010 (2022)
Working Paper: The Average and Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Investments: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa 1960-2010 (2019)
Working Paper: The Average and Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Investments: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa 1960-2010 (2017)
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:nbr:nberwo:27670

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27670

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().