Does traffic congestion reduce employment growth?
Author InfoHymel, Kent Abstract This paper examines the impact of traffic congestion on employment growth in large U.S. metropolitan areas. An historic highway plan and political variables serve as instruments for endogenous congestion. The results show that high initial levels of congestion dampen subsequent employment growth. This finding suggests that increasing the efficiency of public infrastructure can spur local economies. Counterfactual estimates show that the employment-growth returns from modest capacity expansion or congestion pricing are substantial. Download InfoTo download: If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
