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Can privatization of U.S. highways improve motorists' welfare?

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  • Winston, Clifford
  • Yan, Jia

Abstract

We assess the welfare effects of highway privatization accounting for government's behavior in setting the sale price, firms' strategic behavior in setting tolls, and motorists' heterogeneous preferences for speedy and reliable travel. We find motorists are able to benefit from privatization by negotiating tolls with private providers that increase their consumer surplus. Surprisingly, we find that by obtaining tolls and service that align with their varying preferences, motorists may be better off negotiating with a monopolist than with duopoly providers or under public–private competition. Toll regulation may be counterproductive because it is likely to treat motorists as homogeneous.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Public Economics.

Volume (Year): 95 (2011)
Issue (Month): 7 ()
Pages: 993-1005

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Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:7:p:993-1005

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578

Related research

Keywords: Highway privatization; Preference heterogeneity; Mixed logit;

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  1. Nicholas E. Burger & Daniel T. Kaffine, 2009. "Gas Prices, Traffic, and Freeway Speeds in Los Angeles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 652-657, August.
  2. de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 2002. "Private roads, competition, and incentives to adopt time-based congestion tolling," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 217-241, September.
  3. Small, Kenneth A. & Yan, Jia, 2001. "The Value of "Value Pricing" of Roads: Second-Best Pricing and Product Differentiation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 310-336, March.
  4. AndrÊ de Palma & Robin Lindsey, 2000. "Private toll roads: Competition under various ownership regimes," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 13-35.
  5. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743.
  6. Erik T. Verhoef, 1998. "Second-Best Congestion Pricing in General Static Transportation Networks with Elastic Demand," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 98-086/3, Tinbergen Institute.
  7. Clifford Winston, 1998. "U.S. Industry Adjustment to Economic Deregulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 89-110, Summer.
  8. Small, Kenneth A. & Winston, Clifford & Yan, Jia, 2006. "Differentiated Road Pricing, Express Lanes and Carpools: Exploiting Heterogeneous Preferences in Policy Design," Working paper 189, Regulation2point0.
  9. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
  10. Choi, Ki-Hong & Moon, Choon-Geol, 1997. "Generalized extreme value model and additively separable generator function," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1-2), pages 129-140.
  11. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2005. "Privatizing Highways in the United States," Documentos de Trabajo 209, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
  12. Mark Armstrong & David Sappington, 2005. "Regulation, Competition and Liberalization," Industrial Organization 0505011, EconWPA, revised 07 Oct 2005.
  13. Eduardo M. R. A. Engel & Ronald D. Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2001. "Least-Present-Value-of-Revenue Auctions and Highway Franchising," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 993-1020, October.
  14. Edelson, Noel M, 1971. "Congestion Tolls Under Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(5), pages 873-82, December.
  15. Fred Mannering & Clifford Winston, 1985. "A Dynamic Empirical Analysis of Household Vehicle Ownership and Utilization," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 215-236, Summer.
  16. Paul Calcott & Shuntian Yao, 2005. "Competition between highway operators: can we expect toll differentiation?," Economic Growth centre Working Paper Series 0504, Nanyang Technolgical University, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Economic Growth centre.
  17. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2003. "Privatizing Highways in Latin America: Fixing What Went Wrong," Journal of LACEA Economia, LACEA - LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.
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