Research from Carl-Johan Dalgaard and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen demonstrates that the density of ancient Roman roads at a given point in Europe strongly correlates with present-day prosperity. Often originally built for military – i.e. not necessarily economic – reasons, today entire cities are located on them. Taking into account increases in real estate value, improved mobility and more, I calculate the 2,000 year Economic IRR of those original investments as … rather a lot.
Roman roads demonstrate how infrastructure spending can deliver (very) long term returns
