“Party Connections, Interest Groups and the Slow Diffusion of Infrastructure: Evidence from Britain’s First Transport Revolution”, 2017-06-09 (; similar):
Economic and political interests often block or delay infrastructure improvements.
This article examines their effects by studying Britain’s river navigation improvements in the early 1700s—a subject of intense lobbying in Parliament.
It shows that stronger party connections and influence in neighbouring areas likely to oppose or support projects affected whether a town got a river navigation act. Their estimated effects are comparable to geography and town economic characteristics in magnitude and help explain whether towns were blocked from getting navigation improvements.
The findings address institutions following the Glorious Revolution and broader issues concerning infrastructure, technology diffusion and political connections.