Private Provision of Highways: Economic Issues
Kenneth Small ()
No 80917, Working Papers from University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics
Abstract:
This paper reviews issues raised by the use of private firms to finance, build, and/or operate highways — issues including cost of capital, level and structure of tolls, and adaptability to unforeseen changes. The public sector’s apparent advantage in cost of capital is at least partly illusory due to differences in tax liability and to constraints on the supply of public capital. The evidence for lower costs of construction or operation by private firms is slim. Private firms are likely to promote more efficient pricing. Effective private road provision depends on well-structured franchise agreements that allow pricing flexibility, restrain market power, enforce a sound debt structure, promote transparency, and foster other social goals.
Keywords: Privatization; Road finance; Toll road; Road pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H44 H54 L91 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2009-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe, nep-pub and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/workingpapers/2008-09/small-17.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Private Provision of Highways: Economic Issues (2009) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:irv:wpaper:080917
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Papers from University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Melissa Valdez ().