Did Turnpike Trusts Increase Transportation Investment in Eighteenth-Century England?
利用新数据集证明，收费公路信托通过征收通行费和发行抵押债务，增加了道路支出，而非替代已有的教区支出，并说明制度变革如何促进英格兰经济发展。
Turnpike trusts were private organizations that financed road improvements by levying tolls and issuing mortgage debt. They were established by Acts of Parliament throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The acts transferred authority from parishes to a body of trustees, composed of local landowners and merchants. Parishes financed road improvements with local property taxes; but they could not levy tolls. This article uses a new data set to show that turnpike trusts increased road expenditure, rather than replacing existing or forthcoming parish expenditure. It also illustrates how institutional changes contributed to the process of economic development in England.