Voting on traffic congestion policy with two levels of government

Russo, Antonio (2010): Voting on traffic congestion policy with two levels of government.

Abstract

I study how the political decision process affects urban traffic congestion policy. First, I look at the case of a single government deciding, through majority voting, on a monetary charge to be paid to drive to a city's Central Business District (CBD): if the majority of individuals prefers to drive more (resp. less) than the average, a voting equilibrium with lower (higher) charge emerges. Next, I consider the case of two government levels involved in traffic policy: parking charges in (resp. cordon tolls around) a city's CBD and capacity investments are chosen by a local (resp. regional) government, through a majority voting process. While tax exporting motives and the imperfect coordination among the two governments may lead to higher overall charges than in the case of a single government, strong preferences for driving across the population can still bring to an equilibiurm with suboptimal total charges.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: traffic congestion policy; cordon tolls; parking; voting; fiscal competition
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations > H77 - Intergovernmental Relations ; Federalism ; Secession; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D78 - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation; H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H23 - Externalities ; Redistributive Effects ; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies; L - Industrial Organization > L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities > L98 - Government Policy

References

Arnott R. and Inci E., (2006). An integrated model of downtown parking and traffic congestion, Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 418-442, November.

Bonsall, P. & Young, W., 2010. “Is there a case for replacing parking charges by road user charges?” Transport Policy, 17(5), 323-334

Calthrop E., Proost S. and van Dender K., 2000. Parking policies and Road Pricing. Urban Policy, 37, 63-76.

De Borger B., Proost S., Van Dender K. (2005), “Congestion and tax competition in a parallel network”, European Economic Review, 49, 8, 2013-2040

De Borger, B. & Dunkerley, F. & Proost, S., (2007) "Strategic investment and pricing decisions in a congested transport corridor", Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 294-316, September

De Donder, Philippe & Le Breton, Michel & Peluso, Eugenio, 2010. "Majority Voting in Multidimensional Policy Spaces: Kramer-Shepsle versus Stackelberg," IDEI Working Papers 593, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse

Gans J and Smart M. (1996) “Majority voting with single-crossing of preferences”. Journal of Public Economics, 59, 219-238.

Glazer A. and Proost S. (2007), “The preferences of voters over road tolls and road capacity”, University of California at Irvine Working Paper n. 060712

Jones P. (1998), “Road pricing: political acceptability and barriers to implementation”, in K.J. Button and E. Verhoef (eds.) Road pricing, traffic congestion and the environment. Edward Elgar

Marcucci D., Marini E. and Ticchi D. (2005), “Road pricing as a citizen-candidate game”, European Transport, 31: 28-45

Mohring H., (1972) “Optimisation and scale economies in urban bus transport”. American Economic Review, 591-604.

Parry I. (2002), “Comparing the efficiency of alternative policies for reducing traffic congestion”, Journal of Public Economics, 85: 333-362.

Proost S. and Sen A., 2006. Urban transport pricing reform with two levels of government: a case study of Brussels. Transport policy, 13: 127-139

Shepsle K.A. (1979) “Instititutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models”. American Journal of political science, 23, 27-59.

Shoup D. (2005), The High Cost of Free Parking.

Small K. and Verhoef E. (2007), The Economics of Urban Transportation, Routledge.

Ubbels B. and Verhoef E. (2008), “Governmental competition in road charging and capacity choice”, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 38: 174-190

Verhoef E. (2007), “Second best road pricing through highway franchising”, Journal of Urban Economics 62 (2007) 337–361