This paper studies the efficiency impacts of private toll roads in initially untolled networks. The analysis allows for capacity and toll choice by private operators, and endogenizes entry and therewith the degree of competition, distinguishing and allowing for both parallel and serial...

This paper considers the welfare impacts of a range of franchising regimes for congestible highways. For a single road in isolation, it is shown that a competitive auction with the level of road use as the decision criterion produces the socially optimal road (in terms of capacity and toll...

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...