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Evaluating the Impact of Urban Transit Infrastructure: Evidence from Bogotá’s TransMilenio

Nick Tsivanidis

The American Economic Review2026https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190874article
FT50AJG 4*ABDC A*
Weight
0.37

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of improving public transit infrastructure on city structure and welfare. It develops a quantitative urban model with multiple worker groups and transit modes, and derives a special case yielding sufficient statistics for aggregate welfare in a broad class of models. The paper estimates reduced-form elasticities to implement the approach using data spanning construction of the world’s largest Bus Rapid Transit system in Bogotá, Colombia. This class of models explains observed adjustments in economic activity. Standard value-of-time calculations capture only 52 percent of welfare gains. Accounting for reallocation and general equilibrium effects, distributional impacts are modest. (JEL H76, L92, L98, O18, R42, R53)

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190874

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@article{nick2026,
  title        = {{Evaluating the Impact of Urban Transit Infrastructure: Evidence from Bogotá’s TransMilenio}},
  author       = {Nick Tsivanidis},
  journal      = {The American Economic Review},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190874},
}

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Evaluating the Impact of Urban Transit Infrastructure: Evidence from Bogotá’s TransMilenio

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Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.