Providing quality infrastructure in rural villages : the case of rural roads in China

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Journal of Development Economics

Publication Date

7-1-2013

Volume

103

First Page

262

Last Page

274

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Keywords

Decentralization, Quality infrastructure, Project finance, Project management, Road quality, Rural China

Abstract

When seeking to build high quality and cost-effective infrastructure in rural villages, a fundamental question is: Who is better at doing so? Should the village leadership or a government agency above the village finance and/or manage the construction of the infrastructure project? To answer this question, we surveyed all rural road projects in 101 villages in rural China between 2003 and 2007 and measured the quality and per kilometer cost of each road. According to our analysis, road quality was higher when more of the project funds came from the government agency above. Moreover, projects had lower cost per kilometer when the village leaders managed the road construction. Overall, our findings suggest that to build high quality and cost-effective rural roads village leaders and government agencies should collaborate and each specialize in a specific project role.

DOI

10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.03.002

Print ISSN

03043878

E-ISSN

18726089

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Wong, H. L. A., Luo, R., Zhang, L., & Rozelle, S. (2013). Providing quality infrastructure in rural villages: The case of rural roads in China. Journal of Development Economics, 103, 262-274. doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.03.002

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