Are Rural Road Investments Alone Sufficient to Generate Transport Flows? Lessons from a Randomized Experiment in Rural Malawi and Policy Implications
This paper draws lessons from an original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was subsidized over a six-month period over a distan...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/01/13579271/rural-road-investments-alone-sufficient-generate-transport-flows-lessons-randomized-experiment-rural-malawi-policy-implications http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19880 |
| Summary: | This paper draws lessons from an
original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to
understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural
areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was
subsidized over a six-month period over a distance of 20
kilometers to serve five villages. Using randomly allocated
prices for use of the bus, this experiment demonstrates that
at very low prices, bus usage is high. Bus usage decreases
rapidly with increased prices. However, based on the results
on take-up and minibus provider surveys, the experiment
demonstrates that at any price, low (with high usage) or
high (with low usage), a bus service provider never breaks
even on this road. This can contribute to explain why
walking or cycling is so widespread on most rural roads in
Sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of policy implications, this
experiment explains that motorized services need to be
subsidized; otherwise a road in good condition will most
probably not lead to provision of service at an affordable
price for the local population. |
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