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American Roads Are Paved With Inefficiency

2025-10-24 20:59:36.281457+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

Bloomberg CityLab: American Roads Are Paved With Inefficiency

North Carolina and South Carolina are neighboring southeastern states, but despite their similar climate and terrain, their costs of highway projects are vastly different. For repaving work begun in 2018 or 2019, South Carolina’s Department of Transportation spent an average of $375,500 per mile, more than twice as much as its northern neighbor.

Yale Law & Economics Research Paper: State Capacity and Infrastructure Costs, Zachary D. Liscow, Cailin Slattery, William Nober

Abstract Why is it so expensive to build infrastructure in the United States? We collect new project-level data on infrastructure costs and conduct a survey on how states plan, pro- cure, and deliver these projects. While there are many determinants of project costs, the survey results suggest that low state capacity at the agency delivering the projects is a primary cost driver. We investigate this with administrative data that links individual personnel to infrastructure projects. We find that higher-quality government engineers deliver observationally similar projects at significantly lower cost; going from the 25th to 75th percentile of engineer quality is associated with a 14% reduction in project-level costs, amounting to more than three times the average engineer salary. Further, losing expertise to retirement has substantial consequences: the cost increase arising from engineer departures is six times the size of their wages. Our results highlight the value of experience and human capital in public organizations.

Sounds like "pay your public employees more, abuse them less, save money".

[ related topics: Invention and Design moron Current Events Work, productivity and environment Currency Economics Global Warming ]

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