Cars and Demographics Lave, Charles
IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc,
01/1992
Paper
Odprti dostop
Imagine that it's January 1993. Our environmentalist coalition has swept all the national elections and is ready to declare war on the automobile. We shall make urban life in America as civilized as ...urban life in Europe.
Starting in the mid-1960's, US government policy encouraged the public takeover and subsidy of what had been a self-supporting, privately owned transit industry. The combination of public ownership ...and subsidy halted the long-term decline in ridership, but it also led to the growth of an enormous financial deficit. Using individual data from 62 transit properties to measure the change in productivity (output per dollar of input) over the period 1950-1985, this paper examines the relationship between productivity and government subsidies. The magnitude of the productivity decline surprising: indeed, if productivity had merely remained constant since 1964, the year the subsidy program began, total operating expenses would be more than 40% lower. To put that figure in perspective, this is enough cost reduction to erase most of the current operating deficit -- without raising fares.
Our current alarm about traffic congestion stems in large part from perception of trends: thirty years ago traffic flowed smoothly; today it crawls. If this trend continues, congestion will become ...gridlock. These perceptions lead to statements such as: "There is no point to building highways, new lanes fill up as soon as they are opened." I present evidence to show that such trend-based thinking is wrong because it ignores structural shifts in the demographics of auto ownership and use. At this time, auto ownership is effectively saturated: we are very close to the point where all the potential drivers have auto access. The ratio of autos per driver can continue to grow, but since it is only possible to drive one vehicle at a time, the growth rate of auto-use must decline to about the rate of population growth -- a rate which is 2.9 times lower than the rate we have experienced in the period since 1960. Thus, fatalistic prophesies about future gridlock have overstated the potential growth of demand for auto travel. That growth has already declined and it should level off to a rate which is only one-third as large as we are used to. This is a manageable rate, planning is possible. And, specifically, it is appropriate to think about building new roads to solve our deficiency of highway capacity.
Our current alarm about traffic congestion stems in large part from perception of trends: thirty years ago traffic flowed smoothly; today it crawls. If this trend continues, congestion will become ...gridlock. These perceptions lead to statements such as: "There is no point to building highways, new lanes fill up as soon as they are opened." It present evidence to show that such trend-based thinking is wrong because it ignores structural shifts in the demographics of auto ownership and use. At this time, auto ownership is effectively saturated: we are very close to the point where all the potential drivers have auto access. The ratio of autos per driver can continue to grow, but since it is only possible to drive one vehicle at a time, the growth rate of auto-use must decline to about the rate of population growth -- a rate which is 2.9 times lower than the rate we have experienced in the period since 1960. Thus, fatalistic prophesies about future gridlock have overstated the potential growth of demand for auto travel. That growth has already declined and it should level off to a rate which is only one-third as large as we are used to. This is a manageable rate, planning is possible. And, specifically, it is appropriate to think about building new roads to solve our deficiency of highway capacity.
A Poet's "Education" Lave, Charles A.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
01/1979, Letnik:
203, Številka:
4377
Journal Article
In 1987, the U.S. government allowed states to raise speed limits to sixty-five miles per hour on some highways. The authors evaluate the consequences using a resource allocation perspective: the ...chance to drive faster reallocates traffic from side roads to the safer interstate highways, and a higher speed limit permits highway patrols to shift manpower from speed enforcement to other safety activities. This perspective implied that they should measure the effect of a speed limit by its systemwide rather than its local effects. The authors do so and find that the fatality rate dropped by 3.4-5.1 percent following the speed limit increase. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.
A model is tested of the determinants of educational attainment among peasants on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, involving family background, personal characteristics (including IQ), and years of ...schooling available. Results indicate that the model explains much of the variance in educational attainment, and that IQ is only a minor determinant. (RW)
Regulation by Prices and by Command Lave, Charles; Glazer, Amihai
Journal of Regulatory Economics,
1996, Letnik:
9, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Standard economic theory states that regulation by price is more efficient than regulation by command and control. Exceptions may arise if regulators have good knowledge of the supply curve. In ...practice, though, governments usually regulate by command and control and do so when there is uncertainty about the technology of supply. We show that government may prefer to regulate by command and control when it cares about the investment decisions of a firm. Copyright 1996 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
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