Abstract

Abstract\r It is demonstrated how an analysis of airports’ cost structures and the calculation of long-run marginal costs (MCs) of serving passengers and airplanes can be used as a basis for setting airport charges according to the principles of welfare economics. Based on Norwegian data, the MC for an extra passenger (PAX) and extra air traffic movement (ATM) are used to set airport charges under the assumption that the charges should be equal for all airports in the country. When adjusting the estimates to meet revenue restrictions and comparing the estimates to current charges, we observe that PAX should be charged more and ATM less. This finding is in line with recommendations from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). When allowing charges to vary between airports, we demonstrate how a Ramsey pricing approach can be applied to set differentiated PAX and ATM charges, considering both the supply side (the competitive conditions between the airlines operating at the airports) and the demand side (the passengers’ price elasticity of demand). Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

Railway transport generally has the advantage for large-volume, long-haul freight operations. Africa possesses significant railway assets. However, many rail lines are currently not operational because of the lack of maintenance. The paper recasts light on the impact of rail transportation on firm productivity, using micro data collected in Tanzania. To avoid the endogeneity problem, the instrumental variable technique is used to estimate the impact of rail transport. The paper shows that the overall impact of rail use on firm costs is significant despite that the rail unit rates are set lower when the shipping distance is longer. Rail transport is a cost-effective option for firms. However, the study finds that firms' inventory is costly. This is a disadvantage of using rail transport. Rail operations are unreliable, adding more inventory costs to firms. The implied elasticity of demand for transport services is estimated at -1.01 to -0.52, relatively high in absolute terms. This indicates the rail users' sensitivity to prices as well as severity of modal competition against truck transportation. The study also finds that firm location matters to the decision to use rail services. Proximity to rail infrastructure is important for firms to take advantage of rail benefits. Document type: Book

Abstract

This paper considers a congested bottleneck. A fast lane reserves a more than proportional share of capacity to a designated group of travellers. Travellers are otherwise identical and other travellers can use the reserved capacity when it would otherwise be idle. The paper shows that such a fast lane is always Pareto improving under Nash equilibrium in arrival times at the bottleneck and inelastic demand. It can replicate the arrival schedule and queueing outcomes of a toll that optimally charges a constant toll during part of the demand peak. Within some bounds, the fast lane scheme is still welfare improving when demand is elastic. Document type: Book

Abstract

The paper deals with the estimation of demand functions for services of publicrailway passenger transportation in the case of Slovenia. Six demand functions were selected and separately interpreted. The aggregate values of demand elasticities reported in this paper suggest that the railway passenger demand is price and income inelastic. Coefficients of income elasticity below unity show that the services of railway passenger transportation in Slovenia can be classified among normal goods. A hypothetical increase in average real fares leads to a percentage decrease in the number of passengers traveling by rail that is smaller than the percentage increase in fares. The estimated price elasticities imply that, in the short run, there is potential for improving revenues of the railway operator by increasing average real fares. Prispevek se ukvarja z ocenjevanjem funkcij povpraševanja po storitvah železniškega potniškega prometa v primeru Slovenije. V procesu selekcije je bilo izbranih šest agregatnih funkcij, katerih ocene posebej navajamo in komentiramo. Iz ocen funkcij izhaja, da je povpraševanje po storitvah železniškega potniškega prometa cenovno in dohodkovno neelastično. Koeficientidohodkovne elastičnosti povpraševanja manjši od ena kažejo, da je moč prevoze v notranjem železniškem prometu za povprečnega kupca storitev železniškega potniškega prometa v Sloveniji uvrstiti med normalne dobrine. V primeru povečanja povprečnih realnih voznin se število prepeljanih potnikov naželeznici zmanjša odstotno za manj kot znaša odstotni dvig voznin. Evidentirana cenovna neelastičnost povpraševanja nas navaja k sklepu, da se prihodki operaterja notranjega železniškega prometa pri zviševanju povprečne realne voznine povečujejo.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate the tourism performance of STP with respect to the main determinants that have been found in the literature. Tourism is clearly a comparative advantage of STP and already an important economic activity, however, STP is far from the characterization of a tourism-dependent small economy. Tourism represents 10.8 percent of GDP and the ratio between international inbound tourists and population is at 14.5 percent. For a summary of how STP relates to other destinations. This puts STP as the twelfth country in terms of size of direct contribution of the tourism sector to GDP and the eighteenth in terms of the ratio between tourists and population. Using data from different sources, this note analyzes STP’s tourism-related characteristics and uses different empirical tools to evaluate them vis-à-vis its peers. Economic literature shows that tourism demand is affected by price and income but also by a host of other factors such as air connectivity, language, and culture among others. First, there is an extensive research agenda on measuring price and income elasticities of tourism, which is specific for different types of tourism destination. Second, there is a myriad of characteristics that are found to be important to the tourism industry, such as remoteness, language, culture, air connectivity, bilateral trade, etc. More recently, there has been many studies emphasizing the role of digital media and digital presence1 as a key determinant of tourist decisions.