Understanding the economics and the wider impact of transport infrastructure presents a major challenge to economists. The scale of investment, indivisibilities, the setting of appropriate charges and the rate of economic growth are problems which require analyses and create controversy.
Further contentious issues are the need to rely on public sector finance and certain ambiguities concerning impact on productivity.
The editors have brought together in Transport Infrastructure a set of classic readings in the literature which show the development of analysis in this field.
As the names in this volume show, some of the best economic thinkers of the twentieth century have addressed these multi-faceted problems.
This authoritative new collection of previously published papers presents a selection of the developments in a field which is still attracting new ideas and challenging transport planners and governments in both the developed and developing world, and indicate something of the diversity of analysis needed and the problems which remain.
