Railways and Cities in India

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fenske, James; Kala, Namrata; Wei, Jinlin
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.103038
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Railways; cities; INDIA; Market access

摘要

Using a new dataset on city populations in colonial India, we show that the railroad network increased city size in the period 1881 to 1931. Our baseline estimation approach includes fixed effects for city and year, and we construct instrumental variables for railroad proximity based on distance from a least cost path spanning cities that existed prior to the start of railroad construction. Cities that increased market access due to the railroad grew. The small and heterogeneous effects we find are driven largely by cities that were initially small and isolated.