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- Title
Productivity change in road transport before and after turnpiking, 1690-1840.
- Authors
Gerhold, Dorian
- Abstract
The article focuses on the direct benefits of turnpikes concentrating on one type of road service--the long-distance carriage of goods. Before the railways, road transport was one of the principal modes of transport. The impact of change in road transport on productivity has remained obscure. Productivity is defined as the relationship between inputs and outputs, taking into account changes within road transport but not changes elsewhere in the economy which affected carriers' costs or changes in the price of inputs for other reasons. According to R. Szostak, author of "The Role of Transportation in the Industrial Revolution: A Comparison of England and France," a modem system of transportation was necessary for the industrial revolution to occur in England. This modern transportation began when an extensive and reliable system which could move bulk goods at low cost or high-value goods at high speed came into existence. As regards land transport, this required roads which could support wheeled traffic year-round such that a regular professional carrying system could develop and that turnpike improvements enabled this requirement to be met by the mid-eighteenth century.
- Subjects
ENGLAND; EXPRESS highways; RAILROADS; INDUSTRIAL revolution; ROADS; SZOSTAK, R.; TRANSPORTATION
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1996, Vol 49, Issue 3, p491
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2597761