Do Economists Reach a Conclusion On Rail Transit?

In the United States, the public debate over urban rail projects is complicated by the lack of agreement on goals. Supporters offer a wide variety of justifications to build and expand rail transit. If one focuses on the judgments of economists, the list of justifications shrinks considerably, but we are still left with a bundle of goals. Compared to other justifications, economists appear to be somewhat optimistic about rail transit’s impact on local economic development, but less optimistic about rail’s ability to achieve environmental improvement and serve the transit-dependent poor. Economists seem quite pessimistic about rail’s ability to achieve key transportation goals like reducing congestion. Economists often attribute rail’s political success to rent-seeking and romantic political factors. Of those economists who offer a big-picture view, there appears to be wide, though not unanimous, agreement that rail’s costs exceed its benefits. And it seems that almost all economists who write about rail agree that various demographic features, such as suburbanization, the declining influence of central business districts, and increasing wealth will make it increasingly difficult to design successful rail systems.rail transit,transportation,economists

Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Taxi Deregulation?

Taxicabs are an important part of the urban transportation system, and in most communities are heavily regulated. In the past 25 years many cities have deregulated taxi markets. A substantial literature has emerged examining the merits of deregulation. Here we provide a tour of the main points of contention in the scholarly research on the desirability of taxi deregulation. We find that most economic studies of taxi deregulation find it to be on net beneficial. We mined the literature for economists’ judgments on taxi deregulation. The support for taxi deregulation is preponderant, but not overwhelmingly so. We suggest that the literature favorable to deregulation is richer and broader than the unfavorable literature, which disproportionately is model-building. There is wide consensus that taxi deregulation has been less impressive than advocates had hoped. A very important matter of interpretation is whether the disappointment was due to the over-estimation of what deregulation could deliver, or to deregulation not having been thoroughgoing. Another interpretative issue is whether restrictions on service originating at airports ought to be deemed intervention or contract within the nexus of property relations. Finally, there are also unresolved questions about whether the effects of deregulation have been fully accounted for.Taxi markets,transportation,regulation,deregulation,liberalization,economists

Is There a Free-Market Economist in the House? The Policy Views of American Economic Association Members

People often suppose or imply that free-market economists constitute a significant portion of all economists. We surveyed American Economic Association members and asked their views on 18 specific forms of government activism. We find that about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters. The data is broken down by voting behavior (Democratic or Republican). Even the average Republican AEA member is “middle-of-theroad,” not free-market. We offer several possible explanations of the apparent difference between actual and attributed views