THE DEMAND CURVE UNDER ROAD PRICING AND THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL FEASIBILITY - A COMMENT

This paper contains a comment on an article by Professor Lave, recentl y published in this journal (Transpn Res. 28A, 83-91, 1994). Lave's ap proach towards analyzing the political feasibility of road pricing is challenged on several grounds. In a simple setting, where individual r oad users are identical in terms of private cost of driving and valuat ion of time, Lave's approach is seen to be, although less clear, in es sence equivalent to the traditional textbook analysis. In a more compl ex setting, where differences across individuals are allowed for, his approach is seen to suffer from lacking recognition of differences in individual marginal utilities of income.