Infrastructure and nation building: The regulation and financing of network transportation infrastructures in Spain (1720-2010)

No 201016, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

Abstract: This paper analyzes Spanish infrastructure policy since the early 1700s: Road building in the eighteenth century, railway creation and expansion in the nineteenth, motorway expansion in the twentieth, and high speed rail development in the twenty-first. The analysis reveals a long-term pattern, in which infrastructure policy in Spain has been driven not by the requirements of commerce and economic activity, but rather by the desire to centralize transportation around the country’s political capital. As commerce has been unable to sustain the development of this policy, regulation and subsidies from the national budget have regularly been used to decide the priorities regarding infrastructure creation and to fund the development, maintenance, and operation of the networks.

Keywords: Infrastructure; Transportation; Railroads and Other Surface Transportation; Government Policy. JEL classification:L91; L92; L98 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2010-09, Revised 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Journal Article: Infrastructure and nation building: The regulation and financing of network transportation infrastructures in Spain (1720--2010) (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ira:wpaper:201016

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