No description available.

Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2007.

The effectiveness of speed limits has been the subject of considerable debate over the years. In most cases in the past, speed limits have been changed because of a single factor (e. g. improving the safety of road traffic or saving energy). In this thesis an attempt has been made to evaluate the consequences of changing a speed limit using cost-benefit analysis which formed the principle objective of this study. The scope was confined to motorways and similar high-quality roads operating under free-flow traffic conditions where speed limits were believed to be most effective. To achieve the main goal, the effect of the speed limit on the mean speed of traffic was investigated which was the second objective of the study. The third objective was to find the effect of the speed of traffic, and especially the mean speed of traffic, on the frequency and severity of personal injury accidents. There was a need to investigate these two relationships as the literature was not consistent on these relationships. A hypothesis was proposed to achieve the second objective. This was tested by defining criteria that had to be met for each of the data collection sites and measuring the speed of vehicles. There were II sites in Tyne & Wear, England and 14 sites in the State of Bahrain. A statistical analysis was applied to the data collected. It was found, from both sets of data, that speed limits had a positive effect on the mean speed and the eighty-fifth percentile speed of traffic. Linear and non-linear (multiplicative) models were developed for each set of data. In addition to the speed limit, the trip length and the length of the section were shown to affect significantly the mean speed of traffic. The amount of change in the mean speed of traffic varied between the models tested but, generally, for every 4 to 5 km/h change in the speed limit the mean speed of traffic changed by, about, I km/h. In a similar way, a hypothesis was proposed to pursue the third objective. Criteria were established for the selection of suitable data collection sites and for the types of accidents. 9 sites were selected in Tyne & Wear and 10 sites in the State of Bahrain. Data was drawn from a5 year set of accident records in Tyne and Wear and a four year set in the State of Bahrain. A statistical analysis was applied to the data. The set of data from Tyne & Wear revealed no significant relationship between the mean speed of traffic and the frequency of accidents but the speed differentials affected the frequency of the personal injury accidents. The data from Bahrain showed that both the mean speed of traffic and the speed differentials of vehicles affected the frequency of the personal injury accidents. No significant relationships were found between the speed of vehicles and the severity of the personal injury accidents. The principle objective of the study was achieved by applying cost-benefit analysis to the consequences of changing the speed limit for a hypothetical typical section of road. The components of cost were the cost of travel-time, the vehicle operating cost, and the cost of accidents. No monetary values were assigned to the environmental effects so it was not possible to include them in the cost-benefit analysis but they were acknowledged. Any changes in air pollution and noise annoyance due to a change in the mean speed of traffic following a change in a speed limit were likely to be small and were not considered in the study. The significance of the uncertainty in the frequency and severity of personal injury accidents in relation to the mean speed of traffic was studied using 'break-even analysis'. Generally, it was believed that lowering the speed limit on motorways and similar high-quality roads would produce negative benefits, even if the frequency and severity of personal injury accidents decreasedw ithin expectedr anges. Increasing the speed limits would produce positive economic benefits but the conclusion was less firm than the previous case. Sensitivity analysis was applied to the variables used in the cost-benefit analysis. It was found that the net benefits were most sensitive to the estimation of the effect of the speed limits on the mean speed of traffic, the initial mean speed of traffic in the base year of the assessment, the travel-time cost, the changes in the frequency of the personal injury accidents, and changes in the number of fatal injury casualties per average personal injury accident as the speed limit varied (i. e. in descending order for most speed limits). The ranking of these variables differed as the speed limit was changed.

No description available.

No description available.

Existing literature on the airline industry has been largely based on US airline markets due to data availability. The rest of the world, including China?s airline markets, have received relatively little attention. This thesis discusses in some detail the evolution of China's airline industry, current position and the problems faced by the Chinese carriers. In particular, it explores in depth the reasons behind the 2002 airline consolidations, which have brought about many significant changes in China's airline markets. Unlike mergers in developed countries, which might have been assessed and their effects estimated by antitrust authorities before being granted antitrust immunity, the airline mergers that swept China's airline industry in 2002 occurred with no antitrust challenge. This provides researchers with a good opportunity to study market power issues in this market. Using monthly average airfare information for China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines from 2002 to 2004, the actual airfares paid by passengers were found to have significantly fallen in the post-merger period in most Chinese city-pair markets, indicating that competition was still relatively strong and that the major airlines did not seriously abuse any market power gained from the mergers. Based on a reduced form airfare equation in a panel context, the presence of Hainan Airlines appears to have had the competitive effect of suppressing the airfares charged by China Eastern and China Southern. One salient feature of China?s airline industry in the post-merger period is the greatly enhanced multimarket contact of these two major airlines. However, my finding of a negative effect of multimarket contact on airfares in China's airline markets rejects the mutual forbearance hypothesis. In the absence of an effective antitrust law, both fare wars and price collusion have been pervasive in China?s airline markets, causing concern for both airlines and consumers. Both types of conduct tend to be short-lived, but the 'competition then collusion' patterns seem to be repetitive. This observation can be explained in two ways. On the one hand, divergent interests in a particular market at any given time have made it difficult for collusive agreements to be effectively implemented and maintained. On the other hand, the lack of any antitrust intervention has allowed the carriers in China to reach price agreements through overt communication any time they thought it might be commercially helpful. Therefore, both the industrial collusion and price war cycles have not lasted for long periods of time. Using a probit model that estimates the engagement of China Eastern and China Southern in price wars and price collusion, it is found that concentration in both airports and routes did not play any important part in the occurrence of either fare wars or collusion. Multimarket contact had the effect of intensifying and spreading competition in some markets, with no obvious effects of promoting price cooperation. Although the airline mergers overall appear not to have caused seriously anticompetitive consequences, undoubtedly because most carriers were keen to expand in China's fast-growing airline markets, the underlying potential for collusive conduct still demands that a comprehensive antitrust law be adopted to control price-fixing activities, and to stop threats to competition once the airline industry reaches maturity.

New Zealand has a problem with an increasing number of motor vehicles being abandoned at the end of their useful life. The environmental and associated social costs created by this problem are expected to increase with the rising number of vehicles entering the country. In addition, there are environmental concerns regarding some aspects of the legal disposal of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). The exact magnitude of both problems is unknown and attempts made to address them have been ad hoc and success limited. This thesis sets out to quantify the problems and provide policy makers with tools to improve the overall management of motor vehicle disposal in New Zealand. To assess the extent and cost of the abandoned vehicle problem, local authorities are surveyed. The legislation dealing with car ownership, transferral and disposal and its implementation are scrutinised for weaknesses that allow ELVs to be abandoned without penalty. The automobile recycling industry is surveyed to determine the environmental impact from the industry's activities. Using semi-structured surveys, policies and practices used in other countries for the management of ELVs are investigated and assessed for effectiveness. Their application to the New Zealand situation is ascertained. Of the vehicles which are deregistered each year, one in five is dumped. The direct cost to local authorities, to deal with the 25,500 vehicles abandoned each year, is more than six million dollars. In addition, practices and standards for the removal and disposal of hazardous substances from ELVs vary nationwide, adding to the environmental burden caused by vehicle disposal. Recommendations for the improved management of ELVs target four areas, legislation, institutional practices, entry into the recycling system and dismantling operations. Minor changes to legislation and institutional practices combined with rigorous enforcement will close the data gaps and overcome free-rider problems. A disposal charge added to the registration fee of vehicles entering the country will allow ELV owners to dispose of their vehicles free-of-charge. Improved environmental performance by automotive dismantlers can be achieved through licensing and consistent monitoring from within the industry. Implementation of these recommendations will lead to better management of ELVs, through changed behaviour by private individuals and dismantling operations, and a reduction in the environmental costs associated with vehicle disposal.

<p>  </p> <p>The last century has witnessed increased urban sprawl, motorization, and the attendant problems of congestion, safety, and emissions associated with current-day transportation systems. Contemporary literature suggests that emerging transportation technologies, including vehicle autonomy and connectivity, offer great promise in addressing these adversities. As such, highway agencies seek guidance on infrastructure preparations for connected and automated vehicle (CAV) operations. A key area of such preparations is the management of lanes to serve CAVs and human-driven vehicles (HDVs), including the deployment of dedicated lanes for CAVs. There is a need to address the demand and supply perspectives of CAV preparations. On the demand side, agencies need to model the trends and uncertainties of CAV market penetration and level of autonomy during the CAV transition period. On the supply side, agencies need to schedule the CAV-related roadway infrastructure in a way that progressively addresses the growing demand. </p> <p>In addressing these research questions, this dissertation first carries out an economics-based lane allocation for CAVs and HDVs in a highway corridor by determining the optimum number of CAVLs by minimizing road user cost. Next, the dissertation carries out such allocation considering the environment (community emissions cost). Third, the dissertation addresses elements of social and economic sustainability using a CAV-enabled tradable credit scheme that minimizes user travel time subject to social equity constraints. Further, this dissertation provides guidance on how CAV-dedicated lanes, in conjunction with market-based tradable travel credits, could enable the road agency to achieve maximum efficiency of the existing road infrastructure in the CAV transition period. The study framework can serve as a valuable decision-support tool for road agencies in their long-term planning and budgeting in anticipation of the CAV transition period. The key outcome of the framework is an optimal schedule for deploying CAV-dedicated lanes over a given analysis period of several decades in a manner commensurate with CAV demand projections and sustainability-related objectives and constraints.</p>

My dissertation consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, I analyze theeffect of the merger between American Airlines (AA) & US Airways (US) on market price and product quality. I use two complementary methodologies: difference-in-differences (DID) and merger simulation. Contrary to other results in the airline literature, the DID analysis shows that, overall, price has decreased as a result of themerger. While divestitures required as part of the merger had a strong price-reducing effect, the overall decrease involves non-divestiture markets as well. Interestingly, the decrease appears only in large airport-pair markets, whereas prices rose considerably in smaller ones. Effects on quality are mixed. The DID analysis shows that the merger reduced flight cancellations, increased flight delays, and had no effect on flight frequency or capacity overall. Using merger simulation, I find that the change in ownership leads to a 3% increase in price. The structural model performs betterin predicting the post-merger price if I allow the model to deviate from the Bertrand-Nash conduct. A 10% cost reduction due to the merger is able to predict the post-merger price quite well. When I incorporate a conduct parameter into the model, the required percentage of cost savings is lower. Given the divestiture and the subsequententry of low-cost carriers (LCCs), tacit collusion may break down. Thus both cost savings and reduced cooperation could explain a reduction in the price in the post-merger period.<div><br></div><div>In my second chapter, I analyze possible reasons why airline prices are higher inthe smaller markets compared to larger markets. In the literature, most of the studies ignore the fact that the smaller markets are different compared to larger markets in terms of the nature of competition. I find that a combination of lower competition, and lack of entry from low cost carriers (LCCs) are the reasons behind higher prices in the smaller city-pair markets. I show that price is substantially higher in a market with a fewer number of firms controlling for several other factors. My paper estimates the modified critical number of firms to be 5 and the critical value of the HHI to be .6.<br><div><br></div><div>In my third chapter, I study the effect of announcement of investment in research & development (R&D) on the value of a firm in the pharmaceutical industry. Three types of R&D by the pharmaceutical firms are considered for the analysis: acquisition of other smaller firms, internal investment in R&D, and collaborative investment in R&D. This chapter finds that few target specific characteristics and financial charac-teristics of the acquiring firm are important drivers of the abnormal returns around the announcement period.<br></div><div><br></div></div>

O objetivo desta tese é discutir, sob a ótica da multimodalidade, os impactos na economia brasileira decorrentes da redução de custos de transportes. Para atingir este objetivo, um modelo inter-regional de equilíbrio geral computável denominado BR-Transport foi implementado, inspirado na teoria da escola australiana. Os dados calibrados para o modelo foram desagregados conforme quatro modais de transporte: rodoviário, ferroviário, hidroviário e dutoviário. Para a desagregação da atividade de transporte e estimação das elasticidades de substituição preço cruzado, usou-se a base de dados dos Planos Nacionais de Logística e Transportes do Brasil, a qual dispõe de informações sobre os fluxos de transporte entre 551 pontos distribuídos pelas 27 unidades federativas do país e o exterior, incluindo custos e volume de transporte por tipo de modal, discriminados em 29 grupos de produtos. Na estrutura teórica do modelo BR-Transport, introduziram-se mecanismos que se baseiam na racionalidade dos agentes, que minimizam custos, e contemplam as elasticidades de substituição preço cruzado entre os modais de transporte, as quais foram estimadas econometricamente. Foram admitidas duas abordagens para a estimação da função de demanda: a translog do tipo Constant Elasticity of Substitution, que corresponde à especificação teórica das funções de produção implementadas no modelo de equilíbrio geral computável; e a Multinomial Conditional Logit, tipicamente usada em modelos de escolha de modos de transporte. Ambas as estimações contaram com controles adicionais, como atributos do modal, efeitos fixos e variáveis instrumentais. As elasticidades obtidas a partir das diferentes formas funcionais permitiram realizar uma análise de sensibilidade dos resultados do modelo de equilíbrio geral, com base no uso dos diferentes vetores de elasticidades. Os resultados indicaram que choques generalizados de redução de custos no sistema de transporte brasileiro geram um aumento das exportações e importações inter-regionais e beneficiam principalmente os produtos regionais brutos dos estados das regiões Norte e Nordeste do país. Tais resultados estão diretamente associados à melhoria de acesso desses estados aos principais mercados consumidores e fornecedores, localizados nas regiões Sudeste e Sul, e revelam o potencial de redistribuição regional de renda das políticas de reduções de custos de transportes. Em uma análise dos impactos específicos dessas reduções de custos em cada modal, notou-se a preponderância do transporte rodoviário na economia nacional, em todos os estados e setores. Simulando uma redução de custos generalizada no modal ferroviário, o estado mais beneficiado seria o Pará, sobretudo porque ligações específicas por este modal entre os estados do Pará, de São Paulo e Minas Gerais estão entre as vinte mais importantes em termos de benefícios ao Produto Interno Bruto e às exportações nacionais. Melhorias no modal hidroviário, por sua vez, teriam impactos relevantes nos estados da região Norte do país. Já o modal dutoviário ainda mostra pequena expressão em relação a impactos regionais e setoriais / The objective of this thesis is to discuss, from the perspective of multimodality, the impacts on the Brazilian economy resulting from the retrenchment of transportation. To achieve this goal, an interregional computable general equilibrium model named BR-Transport was implemented, inspired by the theory of the Australian school. The calibrated data used in the model were disaggregated according to four modes of transport: roads, rails, waterways and pipelines. For the disaggregation of the transport activity and the estimation of the cross-price elasticities of substitution, the Brazilian National Plan for Logistics and Transport database was used; it contains information about traffic flows between 551 points over the 27 Brazilian states and the rest of the world, including costs and volume of transport for each mode of transportation, discriminated in 29 different product groups. In the theoretical structure of the BR-Transport model, mechanisms were introduced based on the rationality of agents, which minimize costs; they include the cross-price elasticities of substitution between modes of transport, which were econometrically estimated. Thus, two distinct functional forms were admitted: the first one was the Constant Elasticity of Substitution, a translog which corresponds to the theoretical specification of the production functions implemented in the computable general equilibrium model; and the second one was the Multinomial Conditional Logit, which is typically used in choice models of modes of transportation. Both estimations were made using additional controls, such as modal attributes, fixed effects and instrumental variables. The elasticities obtained from the different functional forms allowed the implementation of a sensitivity analysis of the general equilibrium model results, based on the use of different elasticities vectors. Results show that general shocks of retrenchment in the Brazilian transportation system increase inter-regional exports and imports and especially benefit gross regional products in Brazil\'s North and Northeast regions. These results are directly related to the improvement of the accessibility of these states to big markets and suppliers, located in the Southeast and South regions, and they demonstrate that politics of retrenchment of transport improve regional income redistribution. An analysis of the specific impacts of retrenchment in each mode indicates a preponderance of road transport in the national economy, in all states and sectors. A simulation of a general retrenchment of the railway mode shows that the state of Pará would have more benefits due to the fact that specific railway links between this state and the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais are among the 20 most important ones in terms of benefits to the national Gross Domestic Product and the national exports. On the other hand, improvements in waterways would have significant impacts on the states of the North region. Finally, pipelines still show little expression with respect to regional and sectoral impacts.