Abstract
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.
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