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THE TRANSITION FROM PIGOU’S IDEAS ON ROAD PRICING TO THEIR APPLICATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2020

Kenneth Button
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Abstract

A century ago Arthur Pigou published The Economics of Welfare. Within this volume are a few lines relating to the pricing of traffic congestion. Over the years, these lines have attracted the attention and thoughts of some of the leading economists of their day. These have included Knight, Clapham, and Robertson in the 1920s; Kahn and Viner in the 1930s; Ellis and Fellner in the 1940s; and Buchanan, Vickrey, Solow, Friedman, Walters, Demsetz, Newbery, and Allais in the post-World War II period. Here, I look at the academic arguments from the 1920s concerning how roads should be priced and by whom. I then move to consider the continuation of the intellectual debates after World War II and their implications for policy design and implementation. Finally, I briefly look at the extent to which some of the existing road congestion pricing systems meet the requirements of the economic theory.

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Articles
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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 417 - 438
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© The History of Economics Society 2020

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Footnotes

Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. The author would like to thank both the editor of the Journal and two referees for extremely useful comments. The final product remains my responsibility.

References

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