Abstract: This paper tries to explain the relationship between the transportation industry and economic growth. In fact this research is a part of the issue related with division of labor in economics, and is a fundamental problem of economics. There is no deep research in the interaction mechanism between division of labor among industries and market scale until now, in the mechanism of how institutional arrangement push the development of transportation industry, and in further problem about increasing return. In tradition economics, there is no theoretical frame for analyzing the internal mechanisms among economic growth, transportation infrastructure, and institutional arrangement. This paper based on the facts of American economic growth in the 19 century, which are the institutional arrangement induce the development of transportation industry, then which industry induce economic growth, and economic growth further benefit the development of the transportation industry, to probe the above theoretical problems.

Key words: institutional arrangement, division of labor among industries, increasing return

摘要： 试图从一个新的理论视角说明交通运输与经济增长的关系，对交通运输与经济增长关系问题的研究，可以看成是经济学关于分工问题研究的一个组成部分，是一个最基本的经济学问题。目前经济学对于产业间分工与市场规模之间的相互作用关系，制度安排促进交通业发展的内在机制，及由此导致的收益递增式经济增长还缺乏深入研究，经济学中还缺乏一个分析经济增长、交通运输基础设施、制度安排之间相互作用机制的理论框架。本文试图以美国19世纪经济发展中，制度安排推动了交通运输业的发展，交通运输业的发展促进经济增长，而经济增长有促进了交通运输业发展的历史事实，对上述问题进行初步的理论探讨。

关键词: 制度安排, 产业间分工, 报酬递增