In the Auto-Oil Programme, the European Commission looks for emission limits for cars such that the urban air quality targets are reached at minimum cost. This optimisation problem was solved by Degraeve et al. (1998). In this paper we deal with two methodological problems in this cost...

This paper discusses the stranded cost concept. Stranded costs have to do with the transition from a regulated to a more competitive market. The aim of the paper is threefold. First, the paper discusses the place of the stranded cost concept in the variety of costs concepts encountered in the...

We aim to integrate information, monitoring and enforcement costs into the choice of environmental policy instruments. We use a static partial equilibrium framework to study different combinations of regulatory instruments (taxes, standards...) and enforcement instruments (criminal fine,...

The paper analyses several possible concepts for transport accounts. First, it considers business type of transport accounts. It is shown that in general these are not a good guide for transport policy. Next, the paper examines the potential of social transport accounts and sees to what extent...

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature dealing with horizontal and vertical tax competition in the transport sector, taking into account the role of transport externalities. Our emphasis throughout is on tax competition between governments, not between private suppliers. For the...

This paper discusses investments in transport infrastructure and incentives for commuting taxes in a multiregional setting. We study the horizontal and vertical interactions between governments. We identify incentives for strategic and tax exporting behavior that might lead to underinvestment in...

A federal government tries to force local governments to implement welfare optimal tolling and investment. Welfare optimal tolling requires charging for marginal external costs. Local governments have an incentive to charge more than the marginal social cost whenever there is transit traffic. We...

Gasoline taxes are the most important tax on car use. The question naturally arises as to what tax would be adopted by a government that responds to the preferences of the public. To address that issue, we begin with the standard Downsian model, where policy is determined by the median voter....

Many local public goods are allocated by federal governments using fixed regional shares: every region is entitled a fixed share of the total budget for a particular type of public good. This paper compares this fixed regional sharing rule with two alternative allocation rules: first best and...

This paper assesses the economic justification for the selection of priority projects defined under the auspices of the Trans-European transport network. In analyzing the current list of 30 priority projects, we apply three different transport models to undertake a cost-benefit comparison. We...