Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: The Economic Impact of the Tennessee Valley Authority: An Econometric Analysis 1933-1950

在总统富兰克林D.在罗斯福政府执政期间，一系列新的立法被通过，希望经济和人民的生活能够好转。 田纳西河流域管理局（TVA）是一家政府资助的公司，其目标是改善田纳西河流域农村居民的生计。 在成立的头六年里，TVA积累了超过3万亿美元的资产。 这些资产包括国会的预算资金、水坝和水库等建设项目、配电设备和土地的支出（1939年TVA年度报告）。 随着如此大量的资金被注入田纳西河流域，很自然地要尝试和衡量该项目相对于成本的收益。 1933年至1939年，全国县级人均零售额增长了68%，田纳西河流域增长了72%。 这一增长的一部分可能是由于经济的自然好转，但如此巨大的支出也可能是由于，至少部分是由于田纳西河流域管理局，田纳西河流域管理局提供了电力，防洪，娱乐设施，疟疾控制，并改善了河流导航。在一些水库建设期间，TVA建造了城镇和学校。 田纳西流域管理局的第一任局长亚瑟摩根开始实施其他做法，如肥料试验站、农业试验农场、重新种植森林和豆类罐头加工业务。 田纳西流域管理局几乎以某种形式插手了田纳西河流域的每一个部分。今天，世界各地都建立了类似的河流管理项目。 最引人注目的是中国在长江上的筑坝工程，包括一系列控制沿着水流的八座大坝。其中最著名的是三峡大坝。 整个项目声称可以改善导航，减少洪水的影响，并产生水力发电。 然而，施工引起了家庭从土地上搬迁的问题，并有可能改变施工区的疾病环境。 通过研究TVA，在其建设期间经历了许多相同的问题，可以深入了解这些正在考虑或目前上线的项目的长期经济影响。 本研究的长期目标是使用成本效益分析来研究TVA对美国经济的影响。 技术和价值评估活动范围广泛，需要评估其在几个关键领域的影响，然后综合衡量其影响。 PI的初步研究审查了TVA的具体特征，这些特征可以合并到长期目标中。 这些研究包括对TVA购买或使用征用权获得财产的计划的研究，衡量TVA对经济活动的广泛措施的影响，以及确定TVA抗击疟疾计划挽救的生命数量。 这些初步研究有两个目的。他们提供了新的实证检验的影响，具体类型的政策，同时也作为积木的长期研究的整体影响的TVA。智力优点：TVA提供了一个背景下，研究经济学文献中的许多问题。 这些领域包括多边谈判、长期合同分析和公共卫生项目评估。 只有纸面形式的数据将通过计算机输入可用的档案。 这将包括20世纪30年代的个人水平调查数据，20世纪30年代和40年代的历史财产购买，20世纪20年代和30年代的战争动员计划，1925-1950年间特定疾病的县级死亡率和发病率数据，以及同期县级财政数据。更广泛的影响：TVA提供了区域水管理的长期历史。 许多当前的问题存在于创建TVA期间：从洪水地区迁移居民，财产购买做法，大坝建设的更广泛的经济影响，以及意想不到的后果，如传染病发病率的增加。 通过研究TVA，将阐明可比的大型项目在其生命周期内是否具有经济合理性。

During the first 100 days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, a flurry of new legislation was passed in the hopes that the economy and people's lives would turn around. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government sponsored corporation, was targeted to improve the livelihood of those living in the rural Tennessee River Valley. In the first six years of its existence, the TVA accumulated assets of over $3 trillion in year 2000 dollars. These assets included budgeted monies from Congress, spending on construction projects such as dams and reservoirs, electric distribution equipment, and land (1939 TVA Annual Report). With such large amounts of money being pumped into the Tennessee Valley it is natural to try and measure the benefits of the project relative to the cost. Between 1933 and 1939, per capita retail sales spending at the county level increased 68% across the entire country and 72% in the Tennessee Valley. Part of this increase may be due to the natural turnaround in the economy, but with such significant spending the turnaround might also be attributable, at least in part, to the TVA.The TVA provided electricity, flood control, recreational facilities, malaria control, and improved river navigation. During construction at some reservoirs, the TVA constructed towns and schools. The first director of the TVA, Arthur Morgan, began to implement other practices, such as fertilizer experiment stations, agricultural experiment farms, replanted forest, and bean canning operations. The TVA had a hand on almost every part of the Tennessee Valley in some shape or form.Today, similar river management projects have been established around the world. The most notable being China's damming of the Yangtze River, which includes a series of eight dams controlling the flow of water along the river system. The most notable of these dams is Three Gorges Dam. The entire project has boasted claims of improving navigation, reducing the impact of floods, and generating hydro electricity. However, the construction has raised issues over the removal of families from the land, and has the potential to change the disease environment in the construction zone. By studying the TVA, which experienced many of the same concerns during its construction, insight may be gained on the long lasting economic effects of these projects that are being considered or currently brought online. The long range goal of this research is to examine the impact of the TVA on the American economy using cost-benefit analyses. The broad range of TVA activities requires the assessment of its impact in several key areas and then the aggregation of measures of its impact. The PI's initial research examines specific features of the TVA that can be merged into the longer term goal. These include studies of the TVA's program for purchasing or using eminent domain to acquire property, measuring the impact of the TVA on broad measures of economic activity, and determining the number of lives saved by the TVA program to combat malaria. These initial studies serve two purposes. They provide new empirical tests of the impact of specific types of policies while also serving as building blocks for the long range study of the overall impact of the TVA.Intellectual Merit: The TVA provides a backdrop to study many problems in the economics literature. These fields include multilateral bargaining, long term contract analysis, and public health program evaluation. Data that are available only in paper form will be computerized into usable files. This will include 1930's individual level survey data, 1930's and 1940's historic property purchases, 1920's and 1930's war mobilization plans, disease specific county level mortality and morbidity data between 1925-1950, and county level financial data over the same period.Broader Impact: The TVA provides a long standing history of regional water management. Many of the current concerns existed during the creation of the TVA: removal of residents from flooded areas, property purchase practices, the broader economic impact of dam construction, and unintended consequences, such as increases in infectious disease rates. By examining the TVA, light will be shed onto whether or not comparable massive projects are economically justified over their lifetime.