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Should Urban Transit Subsidies Be Reduced?

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  • Ian W. H. Parry
  • Kenneth A. Small

Abstract

This paper derives empirically tractable formulas for the welfare effects of fare adjustments in passenger peak and off-peak rail and bus transit, and for optimal pricing of those services. The formulas account for congestion, pollution, accident externalities, scale economies, and agency adjustment of transit service offerings. We apply them using parameter values for Washington (DC), Los Angeles, and London. The results support the efficiency of the large current fare subsidies; even starting with fares at 50 percent of operating costs, incremental fare reductions are welfare improving in almost all cases. These findings are robust to alternative assumptions and parameters. (JEL L92, R41, R42, R48)

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 99 (2009)
Issue (Month): 3 (June)
Pages: 700-724

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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:99:y:2009:i:3:p:700-724

Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.3.700
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References

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  1. Nelson, Peter & Baglino, Andrew & Harrington, Winston & Safirova, Elena & Lipman, Abram, 2007. "Transit in Washington, DC: Current benefits and optimal level of provision," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 231-251, September.
  2. Glaister, Stephen, 1974. "Generalised Consumer Surplus and Public Transport Pricing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 84(336), pages 849-67, December.
  3. Winston, Clifford & Maheshri, Vikram, 2007. "On the social desirability of urban rail transit systems," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 362-382, September.
  4. Arnott, Richard & de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 1993. "A Structural Model of Peak-Period Congestion: A Traffic Bottleneck with Elastic Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 161-79, March.
  5. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2005. "Does Britain or the United States Have the Right Gasoline Tax?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1276-1289, September.
  6. Mohring, Herbert, 1972. "Optimization and Scale Economies in Urban Bus Transportation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 591-604, September.
  7. Proost, Stef & Dender, Kurt Van, 2008. "Optimal urban transport pricing in the presence of congestion, economies of density and costly public funds," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1220-1230, November.
  8. Small, K.A. & Gomez-Ibanez, J.A., 1996. "Urban Transportation," Papers 95-96-4, California Irvine - School of Social Sciences.
  9. Kraus, Marvin, 1991. "Discomfort externalities and marginal cost transit fares," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 249-259, March.
  10. Dodgson, J S, 1986. "Benefits of Changes in Urban Public Transport Subsidies in the Major Australian Cities," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 62(177), pages 224-35, June.
  11. Gunnar Lindberg, 2001. "Traffic Insurance and Accident Externality Charges," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, London School of Economics and University of Bath, vol. 35(3), pages 399-416, September.
  12. Glaister, Stephen & Lewis, Davis, 1978. "An integrated fares policy for transport in London," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 341-355, June.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Tirachini, Alejandro & Hensher, David A., 2011. "Bus congestion, optimal infrastructure investment and the choice of a fare collection system in dedicated bus corridors," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 828-844, June.
  2. Ljungberg, Anders, 2010. "Local public transport on the basis of social economic criteria," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 339-345.
  3. André De Palma & Robin Lindsey, 2009. "Traffic Congestion Pricing Methods and Technologies," Working Papers hal-00414526, HAL.
  4. Parry, Ian W.H., 2008. "Pricing Urban Congestion," Discussion Papers dp-08-35, Resources For the Future.
  5. Parry, Ian W.H. & Timilsina, Govinda R., 2010. "How should passenger travel in Mexico City be priced?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 167-182, September.
  6. Armin Schmutzler, 2011. "Local Transportation Policy and the Environment," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 511-535, March.
  7. Quentin David & Renaud Foucart, 2012. "Modal choice and optimal congestion," CREA Discussion Paper Series 12-03, Center for Research in Economic Analysis, University of Luxembourg.
  8. Mirabel, François & Reymond, Mathias, 2011. "Bottleneck congestion pricing and modal split: Redistribution of toll revenue," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 18-30, January.
  9. Georg Hirte & Stefan Tscharaktschiew, 2011. "Income tax deduction of commuting expenses and tax funding in an urban CGE study: the case of German cities," ERSA conference papers ersa11p274, European Regional Science Association.
  10. Parry, Ian W.H. & Timilsina, Govinda R., 2009. "Pricing externalities from passenger transportation in Mexico city," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5071, The World Bank.
  11. Polachek, Solomon & Das, Tirthatanmoy & Thamma-Apiroam, Rewat, 2013. "Heterogeneity in the Production of Human Capital," IZA Discussion Papers 7335, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  12. Proost, Stef & Dender, Kurt Van, 2008. "Optimal urban transport pricing in the presence of congestion, economies of density and costly public funds," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1220-1230, November.
  13. Savage, Ian, 2010. "The dynamics of fare and frequency choice in urban transit," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 815-829, December.
  14. André De Palma & Soumyanetra Munshi, 2012. "Multi-player, Multi-prize, Imperfectly Discriminating Contests," Working Papers hal-00683688, HAL.
  15. Santos, Georgina & Behrendt, Hannah & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2010. "Part II: Policy instruments for sustainable road transport," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 46-91.
  16. Basso, Leonardo J. & Guevara, Cristián Angelo & Gschwender, Antonio & Fuster, Marcelo, 2011. "Congestion pricing, transit subsidies and dedicated bus lanes: Efficient and practical solutions to congestion," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 676-684, September.
  17. Spiller, Elisheba & Stephens, Heather M. & Timmins, Christopher & Smith, Allison, 2012. "Does the Substitutability of Public Transit Affect Commuters’ Response to Gasoline Price Changes?," Discussion Papers dp-12-29, Resources For the Future.
  18. Jonas Westin, 2011. "Labor Market Effects of Road Pricing in a Population with Continuously Distributed Value of Time," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1458, European Regional Science Association.

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