The economics of airport congestion pricing

Conventional economic wisdom suggests that congestion pricing would be an appropriate response to cope with the growing congestion levels currently experienced at many airports. Several characteristics of aviation markets, however, may make naive congestion prices equal to the value of marginal travel delays a non-optimal response. This paper develops a model of airport pricing that captures a number of these features. The model in particular reflects that (1) airlines typically have market power and are engaged in oligopolistic competition at different sub-markets; (2) part of external travel delays that aircraft impose are internal to an operator and hence should not be accounted for in congestion tolls; and (3) different airports in an international network will typically not be regulated by the same authority. We present an analytical treatment for a simple two-node network and some numerical results to illustrate our findings. Some main conclusions are that second-best optimal tolls are typically lower than what would be suggested by congestion costs alone and may even be negative, and that cooperation between regulators need not be stable but that non-cooperation may lead to welfare losses also when compared to a no-tolling situation. © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Позиціонування вугільної галузі у зовнішньому енергетичному балансі України

Здійснено формування зовнішнього енергетичного балансу з розрахунком показника чистого експорту. Виконано комплексну оцінку співвідношення обсягів виробництва та споживання вугілля в Україні. Виявлено невідповідність обсягів виробленого та спожитого вугілля та його акумуляцію в Україні. Обґрунтовано необхідність зменшення обсягів імпорту вугілля. Ключові слова: виробництво, зовнішній баланс, імпорт, комплексна оцінка, споживання, формування, чистий експорт.Осуществлено формирование внешнего энергетического баланса с расчетом показателя чистого экспорта. Выполнена комплексная оценка соотношения объемов производства и потребления угля в Украине. Выявлены несоответствие объемов произведенного и потребленного угля и его аккумуляция в Украине. Обоснована необходимость уменьшения объемов импорта угля. Ключевые слова: внешний баланс, импорт, комплексная оценка, потребление, производство, формирование, чистый экспорт.Under present-day conditions it is important to maximize the consumption of energy resources produced in Ukraine, in particular coal resources. It will contribute to solving several macroeconomic problems of Ukraine like raising the energy assurance level as a component of national security of Ukraine, improving the competitiveness of domestic enterprises and the trade balance of Ukraine. At the present stage of development the most popular energy resources are oil and natural gas which is conditioned by their high heating and ecological characteristics. At the same time the reduction of these resources, irregularity of their deposits and other objective factors make for consumption of local energy resources, in particular coal resources. It is defined that foreign energy balance is an index system that shows the demand-consumption ratio of an energy resource in a given period of time inside the country. A foreign energy balance model has been designed which includes calculation of the net export and makes it possible to clear up the modern tendencies that established in our country’s external economic relations of energy resources trade. It has been proved that the basic factor reducing the net export of energy resources is a great volume of imported natural gas though the trade balance of coal and peat operations is negative as well. A complex evaluation of production and consumption ratio of coal in Ukraine based on reduction coefficient to oil equivalent has been carried out which makes it possible to reveal the discrepancy between the volume of coal produced and the volume of coal consumed with its latter accumulation in Ukraine. The necessity of reducing the volume of coal import is proved. Keywords: foreign energy balance, import, complex evaluation, consumption, production, formation, net export

Deterministic versus Random Utility: Implied Patterns of Vertical Product Differentiation in a Multi-Product Monopoly

In this article we study patterns of vertical product differentiation in a multi-product monopoly using a random utility model. Prior research shows that applying such a model in a multi-product setting implies symmetric patterns of product differentiation in which all product variants of a single firm have the same characteristics. Assuming that preferences differ across consumers and allowing for unobserved demand heterogeneity, we numerically show the existence of asymmetric, fully differentiated, patterns of vertical product differentiation in which the monopolist maximises profits by setting prices and qualities. In particular, we show that the patterns of vertical product differentiation depend crucially on the level of unobserved demand heterogeneity and the observed dispersion of willingness to pay for quality. Only if unobserved demand heterogeneity is small relative to the observed dispersion, asymmetric, fully differentiated, equilibriums exist. Furthermore, we find in our model that the level of unobserved heterogeneity and the dispersion of willingness to pay for quality do not affect the relative welfare efficiency of the monopolist