A critical assessment of the economics behind the European Transport Policy

Abstract

In this paper we critically assess some economic principles underlying the European transport policy in recent years. In particular, our analysis focuses on three main ideas. The first one is the promising role played by the vertical unbundling of transport infrastructures and services as a key instrument to introduce more competition in this industry. The second is how efficient pricing mechanisms could be more extensively used to mitigate the negative consequences of some transport externalities. And the last, but not the least important, is the increasing need of a more comprehensive economic analysis of large infrastructure projects in order to allocate the funds where the network effects associated to the transport system as a whole could provide larger social returns.