IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ulb/ulbeco/2013-394346.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring the degree of aviation liberalisation: Should we trust bilateral agreements?

Author

Listed:
  • Frédéric Dobruszkes

Abstract

This paper revisits the assessment of aviation regulatory regimes through air liberalisation indices (ALIs). Most studies are based on the clauses of bilateral air service agreements (BASAs) that are coded and converted into scores to form an ALI. However, BASAs are commonly amended by memoranda of understanding or other kinds of arrangements that are usually not made publicly available. This paper investigates the gap in ALI values between the original BASAs and further amendments, considering a large range of BASAs signed by Belgium and Brazil with third countries. It is found that the degree of aviation liberalisation of amended BASAs is often significantly higher than the original BASAs’ clauses (Belgium: +86% on average; Brazil: +146%). This confirms that ALIs based on the original BASAs can be significantly biased and underestimate the actual degree of aviation liberalisation. This calls for making all agreements and their subsequent amendments publicly available. We argue this should be done under the auspices of the ICAO.

Suggested Citation

  • Frédéric Dobruszkes, 2025. "Measuring the degree of aviation liberalisation: Should we trust bilateral agreements?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/394346, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/394346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/394346/3/Measuring_the_degree_of_aviation_liberalisation.pdf
    File Function: Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Surovitskikh, Svetlana & Lubbe, Berendien, 2015. "The Air Liberalisation Index as a tool in measuring the impact of South Africa's aviation policy in Africa on air passenger traffic flows," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 159-166.
    2. Warnock-Smith, David & O’Connell, John F., 2011. "The impact of air policy on incoming tourist traffic: the contrasting cases of the Caribbean Community and the Middle-East," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 265-274.
    3. Roberta Piermartini & Linda Rousov?, 2013. "The Sky Is Not Flat: How Discriminatory Is the Access to International Air Services?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 287-319, August.
    4. Zhang, Yahua & Findlay, Christopher, 2014. "Air transport policy and its impacts on passenger traffic and tourist flows," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 42-48.
    5. Wang, James J. & Heinonen, Timo H., 2015. "Aeropolitics in East Asia: An institutional approach to air transport liberalisation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 176-183.
    6. Warnock-Smith, David & Morrell, Peter, 2008. "Air transport liberalisation and traffic growth in tourism-dependent economies: A case-history of some US-Caribbean markets," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 82-91.
    7. Geloso Grosso, Massimo & Shepherd, Ben, 2011. "Air cargo transport in APEC: Regulation and effects on merchandise trade," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 203-212, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dobruszkes, Frédéric & Mondou, Véronique & Ghedira, Aymen, 2016. "Assessing the impacts of aviation liberalisation on tourism: Some methodological considerations derived from the Moroccan and Tunisian cases," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 115-127.
    2. Tolcha, Tassew Dufera & Tchouamou Njoya, Eric & Bråthen, Svein & Holmgren, Johan, 2021. "Effects of African aviation liberalisation on economic freedom, air connectivity and related economic consequences," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 204-214.
    3. Zhang, Yi & Zheng, Xingwu & Lu, Wei, 2018. "Measuring the openness of Chinese international air transport policy," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 208-217.
    4. Tchouamou Njoya, Eric & Buhari Isah, Aliyu, 2023. "Assessing the economic impact of the single African air transport market: The case of Tanzania," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    5. Koo, Tay T.R. & Hossein Rashidi, Taha & Park, Jin-Woo & Wu, Cheng-Lung & Tseng, Wen-Chun, 2017. "The effect of enhanced international air access on the demand for peripheral tourism destinations: Evidence from air itinerary choice behaviour of Korean visitors to Australia," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 116-129.
    6. Kiyoyasu Tanaka, 2019. "Do international flights promote FDI? The role of face‐to‐face communication," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 1609-1632, November.
    7. Katrin Oesingmann, 2022. "The determinants of air cargo flows and the role of multinational agreements: An empirical comparison with trade and air passenger flows," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(8), pages 2370-2393, August.
    8. Tsui, Wai Hong Kan & Fung, Michael Ka Yiu, 2016. "Analysing passenger network changes: The case of Hong Kong," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-11.
    9. Tchouamou Njoya, Eric, 2013. "Air Transport and Destination Performance – A case study of three African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa)," MPRA Paper 48017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gizem Kaya & Umut Aydın & Burç Ülengin, 2023. "A Comparison of Forecasting Performance of PPML and OLS estimators: The Gravity Model in the Air Cargo Market," EKOIST Journal of Econometrics and Statistics, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 0(39), pages 112-128, December.
    11. Law, Colin C.H. & Zhang, Yahua & Gow, Jeff & Vu, Xuan-Binh, 2022. "Dynamic relationship between air transport, economic growth and inbound tourism in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    12. Wang, Yu-Chen & Wong, Jinn-Tsai, 2019. "Exploring air network formation and development with a two-part model," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 122-131.
    13. Rahman, Farzana & Rahman, Md. Mahmudur, 2023. "Analyzing service quality of domestic airlines in an emerging country- Bangladesh by structural equation models," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    14. Eric Tchouamou Njoya & Panayotis Christidis, 2017. "Potential impacts of liberalisation of the EU-Africa aviation market," JRC Research Reports JRC106855, Joint Research Centre.
    15. Zhang, Yahua & Findlay, Christopher, 2014. "Air transport policy and its impacts on passenger traffic and tourist flows," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 42-48.
    16. Koo, Tay T.R. & Lim, Christine & Dobruszkes, Frédéric, 2017. "Causality in direct air services and tourism demand," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 67-77.
    17. Hatice Ozer Balli & Faruk Balli & Wai Hong Kan Tsui, 2019. "International tourism demand, number of airline seats and trade triangle: Evidence from New Zealand partners," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(1), pages 132-144, February.
    18. Wai Hong Kan Tsui & Faruk Balli, 2017. "International arrivals forecasting for Australian airports and the impact of tourism marketing expenditure," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 403-428, March.
    19. Zhang, Yahua, 2015. "International arrivals to Australia: Determinants and the role of air transport policy," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 44, pages 21-24.
    20. Oesingmann, Katrin, 2022. "The effect of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on aviation demand: An empirical comparison with the impact of ticket taxes," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/394346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecsulbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.