Highway construction occurs nowadays mainly through widening of existing roads rather than building new roads. This paper documents that highway widenings considerably reduce congestion in the short run, defined here as 6 years. Using longitudinal microdata from highway detector loops in the...

Congestion is a large problem in metropolitan areas. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical framework that can analyze whether congestion on commuting affects residential and workplace choice in metropolitan areas. First, we develop a quantitative urban model with congestion, to...

Although gasoline taxes have long been the main source of funding for building, maintaining, and operating America’s network of highways, roads, and streets, the tax is at best an imperfect user fee. As such, Congress and the states should take action to transition from gas taxes to more...

Highway construction occurs nowadays mainly through widening of ex- isting roads rather than building new roads. This paper documents that highway widenings considerably reduce congestion in the short run, defined here as 6 years. Using longitudinal microdata from highway detector loops in the...

Economics of Urban Highway Congestion and Pricing offers the most extensive examination to date of the relationship between congestion tolls and highway capacity in the long run. This study breaks new ground in the economic theory of optimal road capacity by including theoretical contributions,...