Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we try and analyse the welfare effects of these reforms in Italy, with particular attention to water and energy goods. The first step is to introduce a sensible measure of affordability of...

This paper analyses in a hidden characteristic set-up the design of the optimal price for a firm which is a monopolist at home but competes abroad against foreign firms. As long as diseconomies of scope are not too strong, the optimal price is identified. The price rule depends on the sign of...

This article exploit a data base of 1.522 observations related to Lombardy's municipalities to run a cross sectional estimation of the drivers of MW selection. We find no evidence of a significant correlation between the percentage of selected MW selection and market variables such as the unit...

A simulation model of international tourist flows is used to estimate the impact of a carbon tax on aviation fuel. The effect of the tax on travel behaviour is small: a global $1000/tC would change travel behaviour to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from international aviation by 0.8%. This is...

Based on two strands of theoretical research, this paper provides new evidence on how fares are jointly affected by in-flight seat availability and purchasing date. As capacity-driven theories predict, it emerges that fares monotonically and substantially increase with the flights occupancy...

This paper shows that cities made more compact by transportation taxation are more robust than spread-out cities to shocks in transportation costs. Such a shock, indeed, entails negative transition effects that are caused by housing infrastructure inertia and are magnified in low-density cities....

Transport is the sector with the fastest growth of greenhouse gases emissions, both in developed and in developing countries, leading to adverse climate change impacts. As the experts disagree on the occurrence of these impacts, by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), we have faced the...

Transportation accounts for a substantial share of CO2 emissions, and decarbonizing transport will be necessary to limit global warming to below 2êC. Due to persistent reliance on fossil fuels, it is posited that transport is more difficult to decarbonize than other sectors. We test this...

In recent years several European municipalities have paired market-based measures with urban distribution centres (UDC) in order to reduce CO2 emissions and make more sustainable urban freight ‡ows. However, UDCs may add reloading costs and extra delivery times which have relevant impact on...

A well-known principle of welfare economics states that an efficient resources allocation can be achieved in a competitive economy when market prices are in line with social marginal costs. When applied to the transport sector, this implies that the price of the various transport modes should be...