Transportation Infrastructure Usage and Household Welfare

This paper examines the role of road transportation infrastructure utilization in the context of household benefits. The relationship between the usage of these assets and personal wages in the 10 Midwest member states of the Mid-America Freight Coalition (MAFC) is established. As much of the literature is predominantly concerned with the productivity-related benefits of transportation infrastructure and public capital in general, this study focuses on the benefits that individual users receive from consuming transportation infrastructure. This study takes two key departures from the more general public capital literature by leveraging physical measures of roadway usage and focusing on individual users. The data is constructed at the county level using Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Regional Economic Information System (REIS) data from 1980 to 2008. The results of the statistical and geo-spatial analyses are presented. The findings indicate that there is a positive relationship between transportation infrastructure usage and wages.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE20 Transportation Economics.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Eloff, Jeffrey J
  • Smirnov, Oleg A
  • Lindquist, Peter S
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway travel; Infrastructure; Regional economics; Statistical analysis; User benefits; Wages
• Candidate Terms: Geospatial analysis
• Identifier Terms: Highway Performance Monitoring System; Mid-America Freight Coalition
• Geographic Terms: Midwestern States
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01516369
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-1348
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 28 2014 1:32PM