Rural Roads and Local Economic Development

TLDR

We have content: Background: "Nearly one billion people worldwide live in rural areas without access to national paved road networks." Purpose, Mechanism: "We estimate the impacts of India’s $40 billion national rural road construction program using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and comprehensive household and firm census microdata." Findings: multiple sentences. Need to condense into one sentence summarizing all findings. They say: Four years after road construction, the main effect of new feeder roads is to facilitate the movement of workers out of agriculture. However, there are no major changes in agricultural outcomes, income, or assets. Employment in village firms expands only slightly.

Abstract

Nearly one billion people worldwide live in rural areas without access to national paved road networks. We estimate the impacts of India’s $40 billion national rural road construction program using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and comprehensive household and firm census microdata. Four years after road construction, the main effect of new feeder roads is to facilitate the movement of workers out of agriculture. However, there are no major changes in agricultural outcomes, income, or assets. Employment in village firms expands only slightly. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities. (JEL J43, O13, O18, R23, R42)