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on Transport Economics |
| By: | Chugh, Randy; Cropper, Maureen (Resources for the Future) |
| Abstract: | We estimate a model of vehicle choice and miles driven to analyze the impact of fuel conservation policies in the Indian car market. Taxing diesel fuel to equalize diesel and petrol prices would reduce fuel consumption in the new car market by 7 percent and reduce diesel car sales by 26 percent. A tax on diesel cars with the same sales impact would reduce fuel consumption by only 2 percent. The compensating variation per liter of fuel saved is smaller for the fuel tax than for the car tax; however, the car tax has lower deadweight loss per liter of fuel saved. Our estimates of the long-run elasticities of fuel consumption with respect to fuel prices imply that the CAFE standards contemplated by the Indian government would generate a significant rebound effect. Projected fuel savings are 20 percent if consumers do not adjust to the change in operating costs and less than 9 percent once consumers adjust. |
| Keywords: | Indian car market, fuel conservation, fuel taxes |
| JEL: | L9 R48 Q48 |
| Date: | 2014–09–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-14-33&r=tre |
| By: | Murguia, Juan M.; Hennessy, David A. |
| Keywords: | Transportation, Market Pricing, Water Transportation, railroad, barge, Mississippi., Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, R4, R410, D4, L920, |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170638&r=tre |
| By: | Philippe Gagnepain (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris); Marc Ivaldi (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - Toulouse School of Economics); David Martimort (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - École normale supérieure [ENS] - Paris - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA)) |
| Abstract: | Economic theory claims that contracts renegotiation prevents from reaching the informationally constrained efficient solution that could have been obtained under full commitment. Assessing the cost of renegotiation compared to the full commitment scenario still remains an open issue from an empirical viewpoint. To address this question, we fit a structural principal-agent model with renegotiation on a set of contracts for urban transport services. The model captures two important features of the industry. First, only two types of contracts are used in practice (fixed-price and cost-plus). Second, subsidies are greater when a cost-plus contract was signed earlier on than following a fixed-price contract. We then compare a scenario with renegotiation and a hypothetical situation with full commitment. We conclude that the welfare gains from improving commitment would be significant but would accrue mostly to operators. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00710639&r=tre |
| By: | Jennifer Roberts (University of Sheffield); Gurleen Popli (University of Leicester); Rosemary J. Harris (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | In order to meet their ambitious climate change goals governments around the world will need to encourage behaviour change as well as technological progress; and in particular they need to weaken our attachment to the private car. A prerequisite to designing effective policy is a thorough understanding of the factors that drive behaviours and decisions. In an effort to better understand how the public’s environmental attitudes affect their behaviours we estimate a hybrid choice model (HCM) for commuting mode choice using a large household survey data set. HCMs combine traditional discrete choice models with a structural equation model to integrate latent variables, such as attitudes and other psychological constructs, into the choice process. To date HCMs have been estimated on small bespoke data sets, beset with problems of sample selection, focusing effects and limited generalizability. To overcome these problems we demonstrate the feasibility of using this valuable modelling approach with nationally representative data. Our estimates suggest that environmental attitudes and behaviours are separable constructs, and both have an important influence on commute mode choice. These psychological factors can be exploited by governments looking to add to their climate change policy toolbox in an effort to change travel behaviours. |
| Keywords: | hybrid choice model, structural equation modelling, environment |
| JEL: | C38 Q50 R41 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2014019&r=tre |
| By: | Wachenheim, Cheryl |
| Keywords: | Afghanistan, development, International Development, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170514&r=tre |
| By: | Iván Arribas (ERI-CES, University of Valencia, Ivie); Amparo Urbano Salvador (ERI-CES, University of Valencia) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of local and global interactions on individuals' action choices. Players are located in a network and interact with each other with perfect knowledge of their neighborhood and probabilistic knowledge of the complete network topology. Each player chooses an action, from some finite set, which imposes an externality on their neighbors as well as an externality on the complete network. Players deal with two opposing forces: they obtain utility from sharing their choices with their neighbors (positive local externality) but suiter disutility from sharing the same choice with all members of the network (negative global externality). Economic and social phenomena exhibiting these features are: the adoption of cost-reducing innovations, clusters of firms, time schedule choices, the adoption of subcultures and fads, among others. We find the conditions for the existence of all symmetric Bayesian Nash equilibria and translate them to a characterization in terms of the main properties of the network topol- ogy. The balance between local satisfaction and global dissatisfaction partially explains the equilibrium outcome. The players who finally decide on the type of equilibria are those that are either highly connected (hubs) or poorly connected (peripherals) to the others. On the one hand, hubs try to coordinate their action choices and on the other, peripherals are only worried about congestion and play the least selected actions of the network. Some examples illustrate our main results. As a by-product we also show the failure of symmetric |
| Keywords: | Random Network, Externalities, Action Selection, Bayesian Nash equilibria. |
| JEL: | C72 D71 D85 H40 R41 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0814&r=tre |
| By: | Gerda Dewit (Economics, National University of Ireland, Maynooth); Kate Hynes (Economics, National University of Ireland, Maynooth); Dermot Leahy (Economics, National University of Ireland, Maynooth) |
| Abstract: | We construct a model of corporate tax competition in which governments also use public infrastructural investment to attract foreign direct investment, thus enhancing their tax bases. In doing so, we allow for inter-regional infrastructural externalities. Depending on the externality, governments are shown to strategically over- or under-invest in infrastructure. We examine how tax cooperation influences investment in infrastructure and find that welfare may be lower under tax cooperation than under tax competition; this is, in fact, the case when infrastructure is sufficiently effctive in raising the tax base and generates a sufficiently large negative interregional externality |
| Keywords: | Tax competition, Tax cooperation, Public infrastructure investment, Externalities. |
| JEL: | F23 H40 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:may:mayecw:n250-14.pdf&r=tre |