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Road maintenance and local economic development: Evidence from Indonesia’s highways

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  • Gertler, Paul J.
  • Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco
  • Gračner, Tadeja
  • Rothenberg, Alexander D.

Abstract

This paper estimates the local welfare impacts of highway maintenance investments. We instrument road quality exploiting Indonesia’s two-step budgeting process for allocating funding to local road authorities. Using comprehensive data on road quality from 1990–2007, we find evidence that better roads help manufacturers create new jobs, enabling worker transitions out of informal employment, and increasing labor income. Road quality also changes the cost of living, reducing perishable food prices but also raising housing prices. We estimate the elasticity of household welfare with respect to road quality to be 0.1 and the benefit/cost ratio for road maintenance investments to be 2.3.

Suggested Citation

  • Gertler, Paul J. & Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco & Gračner, Tadeja & Rothenberg, Alexander D., 2024. "Road maintenance and local economic development: Evidence from Indonesia’s highways," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:143:y:2024:i:c:s0094119024000573
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2024.103687
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Transport infrastructure; Road maintenance; Economic development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning
    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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