We propose that people value not only the goods they consume, but also their freedom, which increases with the number of bundles their budget allows them to buy. We apply this idea to show that citizens may favor proportional taxes over lump-sum taxes, progressive taxes over proportional taxes,...

We measure values of time and reliability from 1998 data on actual behavior of commuters on State Route 91 in Orange Country, California, where they choose between a free and a variably-tolled route. For each route at each time of day and for each day of the week, the distribution of travel...

This paper investigates the local and global dynamic behavior of spot wholesale electric power prices in the network of markets located in the western United States. We ask how local perice changes propagate over the transmission network linking the markets in this vast region. We find that the...

People who suffer disutility from making mistakes may prefer to face consumption choices which reduce their chances of making mistakes. One consequence is that a firm may attract greater demand by charging a single price for different goods than by charging different prices for different goods.

The authors explore the properties of various types of public and private pricing on a congested road network with heterogenous users allowing for elastic demand. Heterogeneity is reprensented by a continuum of values of time. The network consists of both serial and parallel links, which allows...

Some road-pricing demonstrations use an approach called "value-pricing", in which travelers can choose between a free but congested roadway. Recent research has uncovered a potentially serious problem for such demonstrations: in certain models, second-best tolls are far lower than those...