The UK Road Fund was set up in 1921 and financed by earmarked taxes, but was unsuccessful as a form of road finance and abandoned in 1937. The paper examines why earmarking failed and what problems arise for replacing road taxes by hypothecated road charges. These charges would need to be regulated and could evolve into a more efficient system of road pricing. The paper claims that recent experiences with regulating capital-intensive network industries make road user charging and the commercialisation of the public highway both feasible and desirable, but that recent government proposals for local earmarked taxes are inadequate.
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Article provided by Institute for Fiscal Studies in its journal Fiscal Studies.
Volume (Year): 20 (1999) Issue (Month): 2 (June) Pages: 103-132 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government R41 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Transportation Systems - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion R48 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Transportation Systems - - - Government Pricing; Regulatory Policies
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Newbery, David M, 1987.
"Road User Charges in Britain,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(390), pages 161-76, Supplemen.
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