The Benefits of India's Rural Roads Program in the Spheres of Goods, Education and Health : Joint Estimation and Decomposition

The Benefits of India's Rural Roads Program in the Spheres of Goods, Education and Health : Joint Estimation and Decomposition

All-weather rural roads usually improve not only villagers' terms of trade, but also their educational attainments and health. Obtaining empirical estimates of the benefits generated by the first is straightforward, not so those generated by t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Bell, Clive
Format:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:	ADULTHOOD AGE-GROUP AGED AGGREGATE SUPPLY ALGORITHM BENCHMARK CAPITAL FORMATION CHILD MORBIDITY CLINICS CONSTANT RETURNS TO SCALE CONSUMERS DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION DEVELOPMENT POLICY DIMINISHING RETURNS DISCOUNT RATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC GROWTH EMPIRICAL BASIS ENDOGENOUS VARIABLES EQUIVALENT VARIATION EXOGENOUS VARIABLES EXPECTED RETURNS EXPECTED UTILITY EXPENDITURES FAMILIES FATALITY FATALITY RATES FORECASTS FUNCTIONAL FORMS GROWTH RATE HEALERS HEALTH CARE HOSPITALS HUMAN CAPITAL INCOME INCREASE IN MORTALITY INJURY INSPECTION LIVING STANDARDS MACROECONOMICS MEDICAL TREATMENT MORBIDITY MORTALITY MORTALITY RATE OLDER CHILDREN OPPORTUNITY COST OPPORTUNITY COSTS OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS MODEL POLITICAL ECONOMY PREMATURE DEATH PRESENT VALUE PRIVATE GOODS PRODUCERS PRODUCTIVITY PURCHASING POWER ROAD ROUTE RURAL ROADS SIBLINGS SOCIAL NORMS TERMS OF TRADE TRANSFER PAYMENTS TRANSPORT TRANSPORT COSTS TRANSPORTATION TRIP TRIP TIME UTILITY FUNCTION UTILITY FUNCTIONS VALUE OF OUTPUT WAGE DIFFERENTIALS WAGE RATES WILLINGNESS TO PAY YOUNG ADULT YOUNG ADULTS
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/08/16603488/benefits-indias-rural-roads-program-spheres-goods-education-health-joint-estimation-decomposition http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12007

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Summary:	All-weather rural roads usually improve not only villagers' terms of trade, but also their educational attainments and health. Obtaining empirical estimates of the benefits generated by the first is straightforward, not so those generated by the others. The object of this paper is to estimate the relative sizes of their respective contributions to total benefits in connection with the all-India rural roads program Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, using an overlapping generations model featuring the production and consumption of goods and the formation of human capital in the presence of both morbidity and mortality. Based on survey evidence from upland Orissa in India and Bangladesh, as well as elements of more usual forms of calibration, the model yields a ratio of commercial to non-commercial benefits of about two-to-one in the first generation, falling to three-to-four in the second. This is broadly consistent with the valuations expressed by respondents in the Orissa survey, who ranked the latter benefits at least on a par with the former.