Welfare Implications of Congestion Pricing: Evidence from SFpark

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pnina Feldman ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Hsin-Tien Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Congestion Pricing ◽  
Search Costs ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Spatial Search ◽  
Welfare Implications

Problem definition: Congestion pricing offers an appealing solution to urban parking problems—charging varying rates across time and space as a function of congestion may shift demand and improve allocation of limited resources. It aims to increase the accessibility of highly desired public goods and to reduce traffic caused by drivers who search for available parking spaces. At the same time, complex policies make it harder for consumers to make search-based decisions. We investigate the effect of congestion pricing on consumer and social welfare. Academic/practical relevance: This paper contributes to the theory and practice of the management of scarce resources in the public sector, where welfare is of particular interest. Methodologically, we contribute to the literature on structural estimation of dynamic spatial search models. Methodology: Using data from the City of San Francisco, both before and after the implementation of a congestion-pricing parking program, SFpark, we estimate the welfare implications of the policy. We use a dynamic spatial search model to structurally estimate consumers’ search costs, distance disutilities, price sensitivities, and trip valuations. Results: We find that congestion pricing increases consumer and social welfare by more than 4% and reduces search traffic by more than 10% in congested regions compared with fixed pricing. However, congestion pricing may hurt welfare in uncongested regions, in which the focus should be on increasing utilization. Moreover, an unnecessarily complex congestion-pricing scheme makes it difficult for consumers to make search-based decisions. We find that a simpler pricing policy may yield higher welfare than a complex one. Lastly, compared with a policy that imposes limits on parking durations, congestion pricing increases social welfare by allocating the scarce resource to consumers who value it most. Managerial implications: The insights from SFpark offer important implications for local governments that consider alternatives for managing parking and congestion and for public-sector managers who evaluate the tradeoffs between approaches to manage public resources.

How can a municipal government continue operations during megadisasters? An analysis of preparedness using complex adaptive systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 779-792
Author(s):  
Masahiko Haraguchi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Continuity Planning ◽  
Complex Adaptive

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how government continuity planning contributes to strengthening the public sector's emergency preparedness, resulting in enhanced resilience of the public sector. Government continuity plans (GCPs) are a recently focused concept in disaster preparedness, compared to business continuity plans (BCPs) in the private sector. The need for BCPs was widely recognized after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and the 2011 Thailand Floods. However, recent disasters, such as the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake in Japan, have revealed that local governments without effective GCPs were severely affected by disasters, preventing them from quickly responding to or recovering from disasters. When the GEJE occurred in 2011, only 11% of municipal governments in Japan had GCPs.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyzes basic principles of government continuity planning using complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory while summarizing recent developments in theory and practice of government continuity planning.FindingsThis research investigates the Japanese experience of GCPs using self-organization, one of the concepts of CAS. A GCP will complement regional disaster plans, which often focus on what governments should do to protect citizens during emergencies but fail to outline how governments should prepare for an emergency operation. The study concludes that GCPs contribute to increased resilience among the public sector in terms of robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness and rapidity.Practical implicationsThis paper includes implications for the development and improvement of a GCP's operational guideline.Originality/valueThis research fulfills an identified need to investigate the effectiveness of a GCP for resilience in the public sector and how to improve its operation using concepts of CAS.

The Center’s Distributive Strategy and Fund Allocation

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-110
Author(s):  
Xian Huang
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Fund Allocation ◽  
Fiscal Transfers ◽  
Important Means ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Primary Materials

Chapter 4 focuses on Chinese central leaders (the Center) and their distributive strategy and behaviors in providing social welfare. The deliberations and calculations reflected in the central leaders’ speeches between 1998 and 2011 show that the stratified expansion of social welfare was the Center’s most preferred model for social welfare provision in this period. Various internal speeches and communication revealed the hidden concern and measures taken to maintain the elites’ welfare privileges and benefits during the welfare expansion. Careful reading of the primary materials also suggests that the Center’s fiscal transfers to local governments were an important means for maintaining the welfare privileges of elite groups (e.g., civil servants, public-sector and SOE formal employees). This chapter later analyzes the central-to-local fiscal transfers from 1999 to 2010 and finds that the larger the elite groups in a province, the greater were the fiscal transfers the province received from the central government.

First Meeting of the PIDE Committee on Devolution Reforms in Pakistan

2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-161
Author(s):  
Durre-e- Nayab
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Municipal Services ◽  
Fiscal Decentralisation ◽  
National Reconstruction

The Local Government Ordinance (LGO), formulated by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) in 2000 and promulgated by provincial governments in August 2001, assigns powers, responsibilities, and service delivery functions to three levels of local governments: district, tehsil, and union. Responsibilities for the delivery of social and human development services, such as primary and basic health, education and social welfare, are delegated to the district level, whereas municipal services, such as water, sanitation and urban services are assigned to the tehsil level. The LGO does not only deal with the delivery of public services in its plan but also stresses the need for fiscal decentralisation, claiming that “Fiscal decentralisation is the heart of any devolution exercise. Without fiscal decentralisation no authority is devolved.”

CAF: Quality management model for public organizations

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 26-31
Author(s):  
EMIL MARKVART ◽  
◽  
DMITRY V. MASLOV ◽  
TATYANA B. LAVROVA ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Quality Management ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Control Function ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
European Model ◽  
Public Sector Organizations ◽  
Quality Management Model ◽  
The Common

The existing approaches to quality assessment, based on ranking and rating, perform a control function but do not give government bodies at various levels, local governments, and public sector organizations the necessary tools to improve their performance. The article is devoted to one of the modern models of quality management in the field of public administration – the European model for improving the activities of public sector organizations through the self-assessment – the Common Assessment Framework (CAF model) and the possibilities of its implementation in Russia.

The Economics of Government

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vito Tanzi
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Major Conclusion ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Private Market

This book deals with practical or real life aspects of public finance. It focuses on the growth in the activities of governments, in a world that expects more than in the past from governments. The book focuses on the growing complexity in both the work of the private market and that of the public sector. It stresses that part of the growing complexity is due to the more ambitious role that governments tried to play today, while part is due to choices made by governments, so that complexity may be partly avoidable. This was important in the different pursuit of social welfare by different countries. Complexity has increased opportunities for abuses, for rent seeking, and for mistakes in policies. It may also have increased the attraction of populist policies that claim to offer magical or easy solutions to problems. A major conclusion of the book is that the objective of simplicity in laws and in policies should be given more importance by both economists and governments.

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