The rewards of municipal broadband: An econometric analysis of the labor market

With data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, we estimate the effect of a large-scale, government-owned broadband network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on labor market outcomes. Difference-in-Differences, augmented with Coarsened Exact Matching, is used to estimate the causal effect of the network across nine labor market outcomes. We find no economically- nor statistically-significant effect on the labor market from the city's broadband investments. •Citing labor market impacts, several U.S. municipalities have constructed broadband systems of their own.•Empirical evidence on the effect of these systems is absent due to the small size of cities with government-run networks.•Using Census data, we study the labor market containing the largest municipal broadband network.•Difference-in-Differences augmented with Coarsened Exact Matching reveals no change in the labor market from the government-run network.