Suchergebnisse

Congestion has become a problem for many airports throughout the world. Two different policy options to control congestion are analyzed in this paper: slot constraints and congestion pricing. In particular, our model takes into account that the airline industry is characterized by significant demand uncertainty. Furthermore, due to the network character of the airline industry, the demand for airport capacities normally is complementary. We show that this favors the use of slot constraints compared to congestion pricing from a social point of view. In contrast, for monopolistic airports, prices as instruments constitute a dominant choice.

AbstractThis paper analyzes third‐degree price discrimination of a monopoly airline in the presence of congestion externality when all markets are served. The model features the business‐passenger and leisure‐passenger markets where business passengers exhibit a higher time valuation, and a less price‐elastic demand, than leisure passengers. Our main result is the identification of the time‐valuation effect of price discrimination, which can work in the opposite direction as the well‐known output effect on welfare. This time‐valuation effect clearly explains why discriminating prices can improve welfare even when this is associated with a reduction in aggregate output.

The regulation of rail network access is a key component of the EU policy that aims to strengthen rail markets. Two specific regulations are proposed: (i) a priority for long-distance (freight) services and (ii) a scarcity premium. Based on a congested network with two rail links, numerical simulations demonstrate that total surplus can be greater under the priority rule, which depends on the network charge per train-kilometer. Consumer surplus, on the other hand, is always greater under the priority rule, while fixed network-cost recovery is easier to achieve if a scarcity premium exists.