History of transport pricing

Roger Vickerman

Chapter 1 in Handbook on Transport Pricing and Financing, 2023, pp 9-23 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Transport pricing requires consideration of the specific characteristics of the demand and supply of transport. These specific characteristics fascinated some of the founders of modern economics as a discipline and have continued to provoke interest in successive generations of economists. It requires the definition of marginal costs; an analysis of the balance between economies of scale and scope and the risks of monopolistic exploitation; the need for regulation; and consideration of the external costs of transport. This chapter highlights some of the major themes that have run through the works of successive generations of economists as they have sought to reconcile the theoretical first-best solution with the practicalities of fixing prices that are both efficient and acceptable, not least in the context of the politics of transport policy. It provides a framework for understanding the historical and analytical developments which are covered in detail in subsequent chapters. Transport pricing requires consideration of the specific characteristics of the demand and supply of transport. These specific characteristics fascinated some of the founders of modern economics as a discipline and have continued to provoke interest in successive generations of economists. It requires the definition of marginal costs; an analysis of the balance between economies of scale and scope and the risks of monopolistic exploitation; the need for regulation; and consideration of the external costs of transport. This chapter highlights some of the major themes that have run through the works of successive generations of economists as they have sought to reconcile the theoretical first-best solution with the practicalities of fixing prices that are both efficient and acceptable, not least in the context of the politics of transport policy. It provides a framework for understanding the historical and analytical developments which are covered in detail in subsequent chapters.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Environment; Geography; Politics and Public Policy Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781800375550/9781800375550.00007.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
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:elg:eechap:20184_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().