Travelers and airlines are frustrated by long and costly travel delays at public airports that are attributable to runway charges that do not account for aircraft congestion. Because the inefficient charges are likely to persist, we explore whether private airport competition could lead to more...

This article seeks to explain the recent growth in the adoption of air bags in new automobiles. Our analysis focuses on market forces, that is, consumers' willingness to pay for air bags and automakers' responsiveness to consumers' willingness to pay. We find that air bags were offered by...

This article provides an economic assessment of federal regulatory policy toward airplane noise as encapsulated in the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity Act (ANCA). This act mandated the elimination of certain aircraft, such as the Boeing 727 and DC-9, from all U.S. airports by the end of 1999 to...

The offset hypothesis predicts consumers adapt to innovations that improve safety by becoming less vigilant about safety. Previous tests have used aggregate data that may confound the effect of a safety policy with those consumers who are most affected by it. We test the hypothesis using...

The purpose of this paper is to suggest how the U.S. experience with deregulating its intercity transportation system can identify important considerations for all countries that wish to pursue privatization. Transportation deregulation in the United States gave private railroad, trucking, bus,...

This paper explores a number of methodological issues related to the econometric analysis of stated preference data in the context of estimating the value of automobile travel time. Estimates of parameters and the willingness to pay (WTP) to save time are obtained using conventional ordered...

Recent econometric advances have made it possible to empirically identify the varied nature of consumers' preferences. We apply these advances to study commuters' preferences for speedy and reliable highway travel with the objective of exploring efficiency and distributional effects of road...