The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 108 No. 1 2026
Road End Points and City Sizes
Abstract
I examine the long-run effects of the timing of railroad construction on city sizes. I first present a stylized model that predicts that towns that are railroad end points for a longer period of time become persistently larger. I then show that, in a sample of Brazilian railroad towns, time as end point strongly predicts town size: each additional year that a town was a railroad end point in the past is associated with a town population 0.107 log points larger in 2010. Additional testable implications of the model and an instrumental variable approach suggest that such an association reflects a causal effect.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_01368
- Volume
- 108
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 90-109
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref