THE PENETRATION OF ENGINEERING BY ECONOMICS: McFADDEN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROAD DEMAND ESTIMATION

Ariane Dupont-Kieffer, Sylvie Rivot and Jean-Loup Madre

Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2021, vol. 43, issue 2, 262-278

Abstract: The golden age of road demand modeling began in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in the face of major road construction needs. These macro models, as well as the econometrics and the data to be processed, were provided mainly by engineers. A division of tasks can be observed between the engineers in charge of estimating the flows within the network and the transport economists in charge of managing these flows once they are on the road network. Yet the inability to explain their decision-making processes and individual drives gave some room to economists to introduce economic analysis, so as to better understand individual or collective decisions between transport alternatives. Economists, in particular Daniel McFadden, began to offer methods to improve the measure of utility linked to transport and to inform the engineering approach. This paper explores the challenges to the boundaries between economics and engineering in road demand analysis.

Date: 2021
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