Roads and Innovation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Agrawal, Ajay; Galasso, Alberto; Oettl, Alexander
• 署名单位: University of Toronto; National Bureau of Economic Research; University System of Georgia; Georgia Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00619
• 发表日期: 2017-07
• 页码: 417-434
• 关键词: spillovers; GROWTH; localization; patents; POLICY; TRADE; FIRMS

摘要

We exploit historical data on planned highways, railroads, and exploration routes as sources of exogenous variation in order to estimate the effect of interstate highways on regional innovation: a 10% increase in a region's stock of highways causes a 1.7% increase in regional patenting over a five-year period. In terms of the mechanism, we report evidence that roads facilitate local knowledge flows, increasing the likelihood that innovators access knowledge inputs from local but more distant neighbors. Thus, transportation infrastructure may spur regional growth above and beyond the more commonly discussed agglomeration economies predicated on an inflow of new workers.