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on Transport Economics |
| By: | Eliasson, Jonas (KTH); Pyddoke, Roger (VTI); Swärdh, Jan-Erik (VTI) |
| Abstract: | We analyse distributional effects of four car-related tax instruments: an increase of the fuel tax, a new kilometre tax, an increased CO2-differentiated vehicle ownership tax, and a CO2-differentiated purchase tax on new cars. Distributional effects are analysed with respect to income, lifecycle category and several spatial dimensions. All the analysed taxes are progressive over most of the income distribution, but just barely regressive if the absolutely highest and lowest incomes are included. However, the variation within income groups is substantial; the fraction of the population who suffer substantial welfare losses relative to income is much higher in lower income groups. The two most important geographical distinctions are between rural and urban areas (including even small towns), and between central cities and satellites/suburbs; these spatial dimensions matter much more for distributional effects than for example whether an area is remote or sparsely populated. |
| Keywords: | Distributional effects; Equity effects; Fuel tax; Car ownership tax |
| JEL: | D63 H23 R48 |
| Date: | 2016–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2016_011&r=tre |
| By: | Fageda, Xavier, 1975-; Flores-Fillol, Ricardo |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the relationship between airline network structure and airport congestion. More specifically, we study the ways in which airlines adjust frequencies to delays (as a measure of airport congestion) depending on the network type they operate. Our results suggest that network structure has a fundamental impact. Thus, while airlines operating fully-connected configurations reduce frequencies in response to more frequent delays, airlines operating hub-and-spoke structures increase frequencies. Therefore, network airlines have incentives to keep frequencies high even if this is at the expense of a greater congestion at their hub airports. This result sheds light on previously unclear results in the literature. Keywords: airline networks; airport congestion; delays. JEL Classification Numbers: L13; L93; R41. |
| Keywords: | Aeroports, Aviació comercial, Oligopolis, Transport, 338 - Situació econòmica. Política econòmica. Gestió, control i planificació de l'economia. Producció. Serveis. Turisme. Preus, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/260960&r=tre |
| By: | Emeric Lendjel (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marianne Fischman (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Experimentations and innovations that involve barge transport flourish in France as the main leg for urban distribution of goods. Based on a study of existing container barge transport (CBT) chains, this article identifies several obstacles impeding their use for urban river logistics: the complexity of these chains, on the one hand, and the level of specificity of assets involved in the loading and unloading phases, on the other hand. With the help of transaction costs economics, the article shows that several innovations involving barge transport to supply French cities share a common aim to diminish transaction costs, especially in those phases. This article also shows that coordination and pooling issues lead to adopt integrated or quasi-integrated governance structures to organize regular inland shipping lines necessary to supply dense French urban areas. |
| Keywords: | transaction costs economics, coordination, governance structure,urban river logistics, innovation |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01302684&r=tre |
| By: | Wang, Zidong; Fan, Xin Xin; Liu, Pan; Dharmasena, Senarath |
| Abstract: | United States spends more than one quarter of its energy on transportation. Historically, crude oil has been the primary source for generating this energy. Though ethanol has been proposed to substitute conventional transportation fuel since the 1970s, the expansion of ethanol industry slowed down after 2010 when the ethanol blended reached around 10% of the total gasoline, the so-called “blend-wall effect”. This study focused on estimating the demand for ethanol in the United States and analyzed the effect of blend-wall on this demand and its relationship to conventional fuels. The almost ideal demand model (AIDS) is adopted to analyze the US expenditure on transportation fuels including petroleum, natural gas and biomass energy. Both monthly and annual data are collected and the presence of unit roots at different frequencies (monthly, quarterly, annually) is identified and used to help improve the structural model. Preliminary results showed that, though ethanol was proposed as a substitute for gasoline, the substitution effect faded away as the ethanol share in the blend increased, and turning ethanol to be a complement under the state-of-the-art technology. |
| Keywords: | Demand for ethanol, blend wall, almost ideal demand system, transportation fuel, Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q41, Q42, |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea16:229960&r=tre |
| By: | Victor Couture (University of California [Berkeley]); Gilles Duranton (University of Pennsylvania); Matthew A. Turner (Brown University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the determinants of driving speed in large us cities. We first estimate city level supply functions for travel in an econometric framework where both the supply and demand for travel are explicit. These estimations allow us to calculate a city level index of driving speed and to rank cities by driving speed. Our data suggest that a congestion tax of, on average, about 1.5 cents per kilometer yields welfare gains of about 30 billion dollars per year, that centralized cities are slower, that cities with ring roads are faster, and that the provision of automobile travel in cities is subject to decreasing returns to scale. |
| Keywords: | roads; vehicle-kilometers traveled; public transport; congestion; travel time |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5h955p9lcb808of8er6b8b8ck9&r=tre |
| By: | Yang, Xiaosi; Berning, Joshua |
| Abstract: | Over the past 10 years, five states have proposed to raise the alcohol by volume (ABV) limit on beer being sold to promote the beer brewery industry in their states. An increase in ABV limits increases the variety of beer being sold and may change people’s consumption behavior. Such changes could subsequently influence drinking behaviors as well as driving safety in those states. This paper investigates the relationship between the increase in ABV limits and individual alcohol consumption and alcohol-related fatal crashes. We use difference-in-difference model to analyze the alcohol consumption before and after the rising ABV limit. Our panel data allows us to control for state and time fixed effects, state level economic conditions and beer consumption. We find higher ABV limits lead to a slight increase in alcohol consumption as well as a negative effect on alcohol-related fatality rate. |
| Keywords: | alcohol consumption, fatality, alcohol by volume, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea16:230098&r=tre |
| By: | Ahn, Hannah; Ribera, Luis A. |
| Abstract: | Due to local violence in Mexico and the continuation of safety concerns along the border region, some ports of entry for Mexican cattle imports into the U.S. have been closed. When a port of entry is closed, the USDA establishes temporary facilities for contingency livestock inspection to maintain the flow of trade across the US-Mexico border. The purpose of this research is to identify the border closures’ impact on the trade flows between Mexico and the United States and between different ports of entry from January 2009 to September 2014. The observed bilateral trade flows between two countries could be explained well using statistical methods involving variables as the length of border closures, geographical locations, the US cattle prices relative to Mexican prices, seasonal patterns in the US cattle imports from Mexico, the combined result of drought, and feed costs. Through the use of a regression in Stata software, a series of economic explanatory variables, and a dummy variable for port of entry openings and closure the study attempts to measure how much of impact a closed port of entry has on the nearby ports of entry. |
| Keywords: | U.S.-Mexican Cattle Trade, Ordinary Least Squares, Seemingly Unrelated Regression, Violence in Mexico, Border Closings, Bilateral aggregate trade, Ports of entry, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Livestock Production/Industries, F140, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea16:229701&r=tre |
| By: | Siegmeier, Jan |
| Abstract: | Long-lived public infrastructure (for example roads) complements private goods (cars) and may perpetuate carbon-intensive demand patterns and technologies far into the future. Thus, climate policy must combine `direct' instruments such as carbon taxation with public investment shifts (from roads towards rails or bicycle paths). This is particularly important and complex because infrastructure supply changes slowly and carbon taxation may be politically constrained: This paper shows that if carbon taxation is non-optimal, infrastructure provision should be used to actively change private behavior. Nevertheless, if one instrument is restricted, the other may also have to be less ambitious: Intuitively, if clean infrastructure provision is non-optimal, polluting should also be penalized less (and vice versa), unless welfare gains from environmental quality are large. More precisely, for two public goods complementing private goods in utility, general second-best policy conditions are derived and applied to a specific utility function. Constrained public spending composition leaves the (Pigouvian) tax rule unchanged, but constrained taxation implies that the environmental externality enters the condition for public spending composition. Nevertheless, the second-best level of either policy instrument is below its first-best when `dirty' consumption is sufficiently important in utility. |
| Keywords: | infrastructure, public spending, carbon price, environmental tax, second-best, transport |
| JEL: | H23 H41 H54 R48 |
| Date: | 2015–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:69046&r=tre |
| By: | Murali, Palanichamy; Hari, Kuppusamy; Karpagam, Chidambara; Govindaraj, Gurrappa; Subhagowri, Jaganthan |
| Abstract: | Biofuels provide only around 2% of total transport fuel today, by 2050, 32 exajoules of biofuels will be used globally, accounting 27% of the world transport fuel. Some biofuels already perform well in economic terms, particularly sugarcane ethanol and other low cost agricultural biofuels. The biofuel program in India at niche stage though the policy has been rolled out well in advance. India has carefully designed the biofuel policy and blending ratio to reduce CO2 emissions and import of the crude oil. The log linear demand function was used to estimate the crude oil, diesel and petrol demand. Based on the demand, the bioethanol and biodiesel requirements were estimated. The possible ways to meet out the biofuel demand and production frontier were elaborated. Proper policy making, domestic production support measures for sustainable biofuel production and infrastructure for anhydrous ethanol storage are the guidepost for successful biofuel program in India. |
| Keywords: | sugarcane, demand, supply, biofuels, sustainability, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae15:212512&r=tre |
| By: | Turner, Justin; Kenkel, Phil; Holcomb, Rodney B.; Arnall, Brian |
| Abstract: | The Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) predicts that 80% of the U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market will be in agricultural and rural areas where cooperatives have a strong presence. Agricultural cooperatives could use UAVs in crop scouting to provide timely high-resolution imagery of crop conditions. Rural electric cooperatives (RECs) could use UAVs to detect line-loss, perform line inspections, and assess storm damage. Our research investigated the level of interest and awareness of these rural cooperatives towards UAVS and analyzed the feasibility of UAV adoption. Surveys were sent to Oklahoma grain and farm supply cooperatives and RECs. The survey investigated the knowledge of and interest in UAVs, and elicited information on crop scouting fees and costs, distribution line inspection costs and preventable line loss. The results indicated a low level of knowledge but a high level of interest in UAV technology. Modeling suggests that UAV applications could be feasible for both REC and agricultural cooperatives. Final regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration, particularly restrictions on line-of-sight operation and altitude appear to be a major impediment to UAV adoption. Our survey results suggest that REC applications would be particularly sensitive to the regulatory structure. |
| Keywords: | Unmanned aerial vehicle, farm supply cooperative, rural electric cooperative, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, q13, q16, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea16:230047&r=tre |
| By: | Jones, Lauren E. (Cornell University); Ziebarth, Nicolas R. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the effectiveness of child safety seat laws. These laws progressively increased the mandatory age up to which children must be restrained in safety seats in cars. We use US Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data from 1978 to 2011 and rich state-time level variation in the implementation of these child safety seat laws for children of different ages. Increasing legal age thresholds is effective in increasing the actual age of child safety seat use. Across the child age distribution, restraint rates increase by about 30ppt in the long-run when the legal minimum age increases. However, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that restraining older children in safety seats does not reduce their likelihood to die in fatal accidents. We estimate that parents of 8.6M young children are "legal compliers." They compose an important target group for policymakers because these parents alter their parenting behavior when laws change. |
| Keywords: | child safety seats, age requirements, fatalities, FARS |
| JEL: | I18 K32 R41 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9900&r=tre |
| By: | Hyunkyung Shin (Gachon University) |
| Abstract: | Daily route is a collection of data consisted of geographical points with time of a day and can be obtained easily from mobile device with GPS. Rd = {(GpX, GpY, T)}. A detection model for data abnormality has various applications including protection of child or elderly person from missing.In this paper we build a first order logic based proofing system of daily route integrated with Markov property. From a set of daily route data, we construct a graph consist of a few cluster nodes and linking edges by eliminating most of intermediate geo-points. Our proofing system is collection of FOL expressions consisted of triplet with instance, slot name, and slot value, where the instances are represented by the cluster node in graph and slot name by the edge. A challenge in this problem is automatic clustering for identification of node from continuously updated daily route data. We present an incremental learning method for updating daily route |
| Keywords: | markov logic network, global positioning system, proofing system |
| JEL: | I29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:3506135&r=tre |