ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: The Marginal Cost Controversy in Transport Infrastructure Policy
Author: Hasselgren Björn
The marginal cost controversy in relation to transport policy and more specifically to transport infrastructure policy has a long standing history in economics. In relation to the nationalization of transport infrastructure in many countries in the 1940s this controversy was brought to the fore, most prominently by Ronald Coase in a series of articles. A welfare economic perspective has been discussed with an institutional or business economic perspective as the counter alternative. The controversy has been obvious in Swedish Post War transport policy. The policies has varied over time between the two principles, with the welfare economic social marginal cost principle as the stronger since the 1990s. It is argued that this focus on welfare economics has been combined with a lower interest in organizational aspects on the authorities responsible for transport infrastructure, which might imply softer incentives for organizational efficiency as welfare economics has been strengthened. Coase’s warnings in the 1940s for decreased organizational focus and weaker efficiency incentives seems to be exemplified in Sweden’s transport infrastructure policy.
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