Complementarities in Infrastructure: Evidence from Indian Agriculture

Complementarities between infrastructure projects have been understudied. Thispaper examines interactions in the impacts of large-scale road construction, electrification, and mobile phone coverage programs in rural India. We exploit variation over time in when villages received the programs to study the individualand joint impacts on a range of outcomes. Notably, we find strong evidence that villages increase dry-season cropping when they receive both electricity and roads, but not when they receive one without the other. This increase in dry-season cropping is associated with a move towards market crops and improved economic conditions (i.e., higher assets and consumption). These findings have implications for the optimal implementation of infrastructure programs.