FOR THE COMMANDER

The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed as an official DoD position. It is published in the interest of scientific and technical information exchange

Strategic investment and pricing decisions in a congested transport corridor

This paper studies pricing and investment decisions on a congested transport corridor where the elements of the corridor are controlled by different governments. A corridor can be an interstate highway or railway line, or an inter-modal connection. We model the simplest corridor: two transport links in series, where each of the links is controlled by a different government. Each link is used by transit as well as by local traffic: both links are subject to congestion. We consider a two-stage non-cooperative game where both Governments strategically set capacity in the first stage and play a pricing game in the second stage. Three pricing regimes are distinguished: (i) differentiated tolls between local and transit transport, (ii) one uniform toll on local and transit traffic, and (iii) only the local users can be tolled. Numerical analysis illustrates all theoretical insights. A number of interesting results are obtained. First, transit tolls on the network will be inefficiently high. If only local traffic can be tolled. however, the Nash equilibrium tolls are inefficiently low. Second. raising the toll on transit through a given country by one euro raises the toll on the whole trajectory by less than one euro. Third, higher capacity investment in a given region not only reduces optimal tolls in this region under all pricing regimes but it also increases the transit tolls on the other link of the corridor. Fourth, capacities in the different regions are strategic complements: when one country on the corridor increases transport capacity, it forces the other country to do the same. Finally, if transit is sufficiently important, it may be welfare improving not to allow any tolling at all, or to only allow the tolling of locals. If countries can toll transit, capacity and toll competition would lead to insufficient investment and strong tax exporting behavior, so that welfare is actually higher in the absence of any tolling at all. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Land Reclamation in the Rhine and Yangzi Deltas: An Explorative Comparison, 1600–1800

In the early sixteenth century, the deltas of Rhine and Yangzi faced comparable ecological crises, but neither of these riverine societies was deterred by the mounting challenges. They independently developed divergent ways to not only defend against the encroaching water, but also reclaim new land from the water. This paper aims to examine the factors in the making of that transformation in these two riverine societies and to ask how they took different paths, why, and what were the implications of that divergence. In asking these questions, particular attention will be paid to the significance of technological and institutional breakthroughs in the Dutch case, such as highly efficient windmills for pumping water, the mapping of cadastral surveys with triangulation, the centralization of power in the local water boards (heemraden), and the involvement of the financial market. In the Chinese case, we focus on the importance of the developing domestic market, the relationship between state and society in local water management, and the formation of unique local land reclamation organizations