https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/anna-tompsett/Anna TompsettHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/bridges/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/bridges/<p>This paper measures the causal effects of land transport infrastructure on economic activity, exploiting quasi-experimental variation in bridge construction over the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in the United States. The central empirical puzzle motivating the study is a hump-shaped relationship between per capita income and distance to major land transport routes in contemporary U.S. data: income peaks around 5 km from a transport route, with an elasticity of 0.072 closer than 4.1 km and -0.096 at greater distances, so that 85% of Americans live where local income increases with distance to transport routes rather than decreasing. The question is whether this pattern reflects causal effects of infrastructure, selection, or sorting.</p>