IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/uctcwp/qt6tk2m53k.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Economic Effects of Highway Congestion

Author

Listed:
  • Boarnet, Marlon G.

Abstract

This paper examines the link between highway congestion, labor productivity, and output in a sample of California counties for the years 1977 through 1987. A county production function is modified to include both the value of each county's highway capital stock and a measure of the congestion on each county's highway network. This allows a comparison of two distinct policies -- expanding the highway stock versus reducing congestion on the existing stock. The productive effects of congestion reduction are significantly positive in five of six regression specifications. The effects of expanding the highway stock are more suspect, and are insignificant in what are arguably the preferred specifications. Overall, the results provide evidence that efficiently using the existing highway network is more likely to yield economic benefits than expanding the highway stock.

Suggested Citation

  • Boarnet, Marlon G., 1995. "The Economic Effects of Highway Congestion," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt6tk2m53k, University of California Transportation Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt6tk2m53k
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/6tk2m53k.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin T. Duffy-Deno & Randall W. Eberts, 1996. "Public Infrastructure and Regional Economic Development: A Simultaneous Equations Approach," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Niles Hansen & Kenneth J. Button & Peter Nijkamp (ed.),Regional Policy and Regional Integration, pages 295-309, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    2. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    3. Gramlich, Edward M, 1994. "Infrastructure Investment: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 1176-1196, September.
    4. John A. Tatom, 1991. "Public capital and private sector performance," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 3-15.
    5. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, January.
    6. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1994. "Public-Sector Capital and the Productivity Puzzle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 12-21, February.
    7. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1986. "Efficiency of resource usage and city size," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 47-70, January.
    8. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J., 1992. "The contribution of publicly provided inputs to states' economies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-241, June.
    9. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    10. Clifford M. Winston, 1990. "How efficient is current infrastructure spending and pricing?," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 34, pages 183-222.
    11. Kessides, C., 1993. "The Contributions of Infrastructure to Economic Development, A review of Experience and Policy Implications," World Bank - Discussion Papers 213, World Bank.
    12. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J & Porter, Robert H, 1996. "The Effect of Public Capital in State-Level Production Functions Reconsidered," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 177-180, February.
    13. Keeler, Theodore E & Small, Kenneth A, 1977. "Optimal Peak-Load Pricing, Investment, and Service Levels on Urban Expressways," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 1-25, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1997. "Infrastructure Services and the Productivity of Public Capital: The Case of Streets and Highways," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(1), pages 39-57, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1995. "Highways and Economic Productivity: Interpreting Recent Evidence," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt4g79984s, University of California Transportation Center.
    2. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1996. "The Direct and Indirect Economic Effects of Transportation Infrastructure," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt1506r290, University of California Transportation Center.
    3. Elburz, Zeynep & Nijkamp, Peter & Pels, Eric, 2017. "Public infrastructure and regional growth: Lessons from meta-analysis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-8.
    4. William F. Fox & Sanela Porca, 2001. "Investing in Rural Infrastructure," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 24(1), pages 103-133, January.
    5. Pellervo Hamalainen, 2009. "Review of literature on the productivity of public capital," Discussion Papers 55, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    6. Pedro R. D. Bom & Jenny Ligthart, 2008. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2206, CESifo.
    7. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2009. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Regression Analysis," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0912, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    8. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1997. "Infrastructure Services and the Productivity of Public Capital: The Case of Streets and Highways," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(1), pages 39-57, March.
    9. Holmgren, Johan & Merkel, Axel, 2017. "Much ado about nothing? – A meta-analysis of the relationship between infrastructure and economic growth," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 13-26.
    10. Thomas M. Fullerton Jr & Azucena González Monzón & Adam G. Walke, 2013. "Physical Infrastructure and Economic Growth in El Paso," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 27(4), pages 363-373, November.
    11. Sylvie Charlot & Virginie Piguet & Bertrand Schmitt, 2003. "Capital public et productivite quels effets sur les disparites regionales ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 113(6), pages 851-880.
    12. Alfredo M. Pereira & Jorge M. Andraz, 2013. "On The Economic Effects Of Public Infrastructure Investment: A Survey Of The International Evidence," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 1-37, December.
    13. Valter Di Giacinto & Giacinto Micucci & Pasqualino Montanaro, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Infrastructures: A Literature Review and Empirical Analysis on the Case of Italy," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    14. Marie-Ange VEGANZONES-VAROUDAKIS, 2000. "Infrastructures, investissement et croissance : un bilan de dix années de recherches," Working Papers 200007, CERDI.
    15. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1997. "Infrastructure Services and the Productivity of Public Capital: The Case of Streets and Highways," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(1), pages 39-57, March.
    16. Pereira, Alfredo Marvao & Roca-Sagales, Oriol, 2003. "Spillover effects of public capital formation: evidence from the Spanish regions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 238-256, March.
    17. Ginés de Rus, 2014. "The economic evaluation of infrastructure investment. Some inescapable tradeoffs," Working Papers 2014-16, FEDEA.
    18. Nikos Benos & Nikolaos Mylonidis & Stefania Zotou, 2017. "Estimating production functions for the US states: the role of public and human capital," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 691-721, March.
    19. Silvia Bertarelli, 2006. "Public capital and growth," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 361-398.
    20. Cadot, Olivier & Roller, Lars-Hendrik & Stephan, Andreas, 2006. "Contribution to productivity or pork barrel? The two faces of infrastructure investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1133-1153, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt6tk2m53k. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.