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on Transport Economics |
| By: | Maarten Bosker; Eltjo Buringh |
| Abstract: | Iceberg transport costs are one of the main ingredients of modern trade and economic geography models: transport costs are modelled by assuming that a fraction of the goods shipped “melts in transit”. In this paper, we investigate whether the iceberg assumption applies to the costs of transporting the only good that literally melts in transit: ice. Using detailed information on Boston’s nineteenth-century global ice trade, we show that ice(berg) transport costs in practice were a combination of a true ad-valorem iceberg cost: melt in transit, and freight, (off)loading and insurance costs. The physics of the melt process and the practice of insulating the ice in transit imply an immediate violation of the iceberg assumption: shipping ice is subject to economies scale. |
| Keywords: | iceberg transport costs, nineteenth-century Boston ice trade |
| JEL: | F10 N70 N51 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6881&r=tre |
| By: | Quentin Hoarau (UP11 - Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11); Yannick Perez (UP11 - Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11) |
| Abstract: | Photovoltaic generation and electric mobility are both disruptive technologies in the power and transport sectors raising several issues regarding power grids. Precisely, questions about synergistic potentials when combining these two technologies have attracted academics' interest. Recent researches on this topic demonstrate that interactions between photovoltaic generation and electric mobility could decrease the overall burden on power grids, and empower one technology with the others specificities. Indeed, electric vehicles could use photovoltaic energy and benefit from a low-cost and carbon-free electricity to charge. In return, photovoltaic systems would use the bi-directional flexibility of electric vehicles battery to maximize their self-consumption. As these synergies operate, these technologies economic spillovers may improve, stimulating their joint deployment. The objective of this paper is to develop a systematic framework in order to review the different underlying conditions for synergy as they have been studied in the literature. It appears that this synergy was driven by technical characteristics as well as economic aspects. First, this synergy happens in middle-sized spatial configuration (large workplace buildings and charging station) and less obviously at other scales and in situation of technologically diversified system. Second, if it was poorly studied in the literature, the economic context (cooperation level between stakeholders, regulation and policies...) of interactions between photovoltaic generation and electric mobility is crucial for a successful synergy. Finally, we identify several remaining issues about these conditions that further researches could investigate. |
| Date: | 2018–02–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01713968&r=tre |
| By: | José Pedro Pontes; Joana Pais |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we establish a two way causality between the phenomenon of the infrastructure which is underused (the so called “white elephant case”) and the aggregate productivity level (TFP) of the economy. On the one hand, the fact that a transport infrastructure is not used so much as it could be is itself a cause of low TFP, because it represents a low productivity for an important item of social capital. On the other hand, low aggregate productivity makes firms strategies founded on large scale of production and exports more risky, given the possibility that the political decision to build the required transport infrastructure may never be taken. |
| Keywords: | Total Factor Productivity, Efficiency in Infrastructure Use; Economic Development, Transport Economics |
| JEL: | O12 O47 R40 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp0322018&r=tre |
| By: | Patrick Alexander; Louis Poirier |
| Abstract: | The impact of oil price shocks on the U.S. economy is a topic of considerable debate. In this paper, we examine the response of U.S. consumers to the 2014–2015 negative oil price shock using representative survey data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We propose a difference-in-difference identification strategy based on two factors, vehicle ownership and gasoline reliance, which generate variation in exposure to oil price shocks across consumers. Our findings suggest that exposed consumers significantly increased their spending relative to non-exposed consumers when oil prices fell, and that the average marginal propensity to consume out of gasoline savings was above 1. Across products, we find that consumers increased spending especially on transportation goods and non-essential items. |
| Keywords: | Business fluctuations and cycles, Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments |
| JEL: | D12 E21 Q43 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:18-13&r=tre |