Railways and manufacturing productivity in Italy after unification

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of transport infrastructure endowment on productivity by adding a historical perspective. This allows us to address the issue in a proving ground where the effects of the existing stock of infrastructure are negligible. At the time of unification,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of regional science Vol. 60; no. 4; pp. 775 - 800
Main Authors Pontarollo, Nicola, Ricciuti, Roberto
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Heightstown Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.09.2020
Blackwell Publishers Inc
Subjects
Industrial productivity
Infrastructure
Italy
Manufacturing
manufacturing productivity
Productivity
Provinces
Railroads
Railways
roads
Spillover effect
Transportation
Italy
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Summary:This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of transport infrastructure endowment on productivity by adding a historical perspective. This allows us to address the issue in a proving ground where the effects of the existing stock of infrastructure are negligible. At the time of unification, the Kingdom of Italy initiated a large infrastructure project to build railways. We find that railways had a positive effect on manufacturing productivity over the period 1871–1911. Railways also had strong spillover effects in neighboring provinces so that provinces that started with a higher endowment of railways benefited more than those who were newly endowed.
ISSN:0022-4146
1467-9787
DOI:10.1111/jors.12484