On The Role Of Government In Transportation Infrastructure Construction

Transportation infrastructure is the platform for market system, the foundation and prerequisite for the economic and social development, and one of the main factors determining the size of the market. Throughout the world, many governments have attached great importance to the construction of transportation infrastructure, not only because of its importance to the economy and society, but also because it can not develop reasonably and orderly only by "invisible hand" due to its characteristics of externality and quasi-public goods.Many domestic and foreign scholars propose supply-policies from quasi-public goods attribute of the transportation infrastructure. This article, mainly based on the massive construction-resource demand, analyzed the reasons why governments play the positive role in the transportation infrastructure, and then made out the concrete scope of government's function. Furthermore, this paper focused on the role of government in transportation infrastructure construction in many countries in different times, including ancient China, the United States, Russia and Germany. Our Qin Dynasty's roads and Sui Dynasty's canals were built for military purpose, and the two governments were fully responsible for the route layout, financing and construction. In the U.S. transportation construction process, by transferring a large amount of land and supporting multi-channel financing, the federal government helped to form a large transportation network system. In Russian, Siberian Railroad had great significance in both military and economic aspect, so the czar government had guaranteed needed fond and labor force for the construction. In Germany, railroad is an important factor worked on its industrialization. In its early time, it was constructed by private capital, but the German government had been actively involved; at the end of 20th century, after many problems were exposed in road development, the government adjusted its transportation strategy to strengthen the importance of the railroad by fostering kinds of policy prop railroad development. Therefore in many countries, the role of governments had promoted their development of transportation infrastructure construction, and inspired transportation infrastructure construction in China.