Financing road infrastructure by savings in congestion costs: A CGE analysis

Division of labor, outsourcing in manufacturing and just-in-time production require the provision of a good and sufficient road infrastructure system. The society is used to mobility, preference for it even increases, and the full benefit of competition can only be realized if special distances can be overcome at low cost of transportation. Since the 1970's, however, the negative aspects of an intensive extension of road infrastructure has dominated the political decision process. The objective of this paper is to model the aspects of bottlenecks in road infrastructure, of congestion costs and of the effect of investment in infrastructure in a computable general equilibrium framework. A long-run "business as usual" simulation will show how congestion and its cost will develop over time. Given the necessity to act we will raise the fuel tax to partly finance infrastructure investment. We will then compare the cost of the addition in infrastructure with the savings in congestion costs in order to see whether this policy measure is self-financing

How to be absolutely fair Part I:The Fairness formula

We present the first comprehensive theory of fairness that conceives of fairness as having two dimensions: a comparative and an absolute one. The comparative dimension of fairness has traditionally been the main interest of Broomean fairness theories. It has been analysed as satisfying competing individual claims in proportion to their respective strengths. And yet, many key contributors to Broomean fairness agree that ‘absolute’ fairness is important as well. We make this concern precise by introducing the Fairness formula and the absolute priority rule and analyse their implications for comparative fairness.</p

No Envy:Jan Tinbergen on Fairness

The important ‘no-envy' fairness criterion has typically been attributed to Foley (1967) and sometimes to Tinbergen (1946, 1953). We reveal that Jan Tinbergen introduced ‘no-envy' as a fairness criterion in his article “Mathematiese Psychologie” published in 1930 in the Dutch journal Mens en Maatschappij and translated as “Mathematical Psychology” in 2021 in the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics. Our article accompanies the translation: we introduce Tinbergen's 1930 formulation of the ‘no-envy' criterion, compare it to other formulations, and comment on its significance for the fairness literature in philosophy and economics.</p

How to be absolutely fair Part I:The Fairness formula

We present the first comprehensive theory of fairness that conceives of fairness as having two dimensions: a comparative and an absolute one. The comparative dimension of fairness has traditionally been the main interest of Broomean fairness theories. It has been analysed as satisfying competing individual claims in proportion to their respective strengths. And yet, many key contributors to Broomean fairness agree that ‘absolute’ fairness is important as well. We make this concern precise by introducing the Fairness formula and the absolute priority rule and analyse their implications for comparative fairness.</p

How to be absolutely fair Part II:Philosophy meets economics

In the article ‘How to be absolutely fair, Part I: the Fairness formula’, we presented the first theory of comparative and absolute fairness. Here, we relate the implications of our Fairness formula to economic theories of fair division. Our analysis makes contributions to both philosophy and economics: to the philosophical literature, we add an axiomatic discussion of proportionality and fairness. To the economic literature, we add an appealing normative theory of absolute and comparative fairness that can be used to evaluate axioms and division rules. Also, we provide a novel definition and characterization of the absolute priority rule.</p