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Estimating the social profitability of India's rural roads program : a bumpy ride

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Abstract

India's rural roads program, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, aims to draw villagers into the mainstream by improving not only their terms of trade, but also their educational attainments and health. Treating each all-weather feeder road as an isolated element within the larger network, and using shadow prices to value the main components of costs and benefits, the paper demonstrates that further investments in the program are, with high probability, socially profitable, especially in poorer and more densely settled regions. Taking the entire set of new individual roads together, qualitative arguments suggest that their external and spill-over effects on the system as a whole probably generate some net additional benefits, but of very uncertain magnitude.

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  • Bell, Clive, 2012. "Estimating the social profitability of India's rural roads program : a bumpy ride," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6168, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6168
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    1. Shenggen Fan & Peter Hazell & Sukhadeo Thorat, 2000. "Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(4), pages 1038-1051.
    2. Foster, Andrew D & Rosenzweig, Mark R, 2004. "Agricultural Productivity Growth, Rural Economic Diversity, and Economic Reforms: India, 1970-2000," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 509-542, April.
    3. Shahidur R. Khandker & Zaid Bakht & Gayatri B. Koolwal, 2009. "The Poverty Impact of Rural Roads: Evidence from Bangladesh," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(4), pages 685-722, July.
    4. Clive Bell & Susanne van Dillen, 2014. "How Does India’s Rural Roads Program Affect the Grassroots? Findings from a Survey in Upland Orissa," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(2), pages 372-394.
    5. Jacoby, Hanan G. & Minten, Bart, 2009. "On measuring the benefits of lower transport costs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 28-38, May.
    6. Binswanger, Hans P. & Khandker, Shahidur R. & Rosenzweig, Mark R., 1993. "How infrastructure and financial institutions affect agricultural output and investment in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 337-366, August.
    7. Bell, Clive & van Dillen, Susanne, 2012. "How does India's rural roads program affect the grassroots ? findings from a survey in Orissa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6167, The World Bank.
    8. Bell, Clive, 2012. "The benefits of India's rural roads program in the spheres of goods, education and health : joint estimation and decomposition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6169, The World Bank.
    9. Susanne van Dillen, 2008. "Income and its variability in a drought-prone region: seasonality, location and household characteristics," The European Journal of Development Research, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 579-596.
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    Cited by:

    1. Clive Bell, 2017. "Project appraisal: A revival is long overdue," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-111, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Deborah C. Menezes & Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, 2018. "Roads and development = environment and energy?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 18(1), pages 52-65, January.
    3. Clive Bell, 2017. "Project appraisal: A revival is long overdue," WIDER Working Paper Series 111, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

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