A sample of 299 U.S. economics professors responded to our 2010 survey. We collected information on the respondents’ membership in twelve professional economic associations. Five are general professional associations (American, Eastern, Southern, Western, and Econometric), and seven are...

I arrived here at the UC Transportation Center just nine months ago. A former lawyer and aspiring writer, I had only a layman's knowledge of transportation systems, mostly based on my personal experiences.  Growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, I thought traffic jams meant having to circle the parking...

The turnpike companies of early America (roughly 1795-1840) were very unprofitable but conferred vast benefits to communities served. Purchases were necessary to complete the road and unprofitability was foreseen. Thus the turnpikes would appear to have been public goods. Yet hundreds of...

Urban transit has traditionally been conceived and governed within a paradigm of regulation and government ownership. This study explains how the alternative paradigm of property rights, which works so well in other sectors of the economy, can apply to urban transit. The key to a property rights...

The years 1800-1830 are sometimes designated "the turnpike era," since in the 1830s canals and railroads began eclipsing the old wagon roads. Its true that long distance travel went by water and rail, but the journey often began on one of the many short toll roads feeding the system. This paper...

This piece is a prologue to a symposium, cosponsored by the Acton Institute, that asks its contributors: Does professional economics need enrichment by religious or quasi-religious thinking? Many common criticisms of professional economics propose the incorporation of richer concepts and...

A consensus is emerging among transportation economists that the best way to deal with freeway congestion is to charge for driving during peak hours. The main barrier to implementation is political: drastic change is politically unpopular. This paper proposes a way of overcoming the political...