This paper compares the experience of the two countries in Europe with the most experience of passenger rail service franchising – Britain and Sweden. It examines the nature of the contracts between the franchising authority and the franchisee, and between the franchisee and the infrastructure...

Given that virtually all British passenger train services were franchised out over the period1995-7, and many have now been franchised for a second time, Britain should provide anexcellent opportunity to study the impact of franchising passenger rail services. Moreover,since several different...

Whilst the emphasis of European Union rail legislation to date has been on freight, measures such as separation of infrastructure from operations, infrastructure charging regimes and regulation have major implications for the passenger sector. However, a number of problems with the...

Discussions about applied Cost Benefit Analysis are incomplete without the thorny issue of discounting emerging at some point. Indeed, since the calculation of Net Present Values (NPV), and hence the efficiency of a project or policy, hinges so crucially upon the level of the discount rate...

Agriculture contributes negative and positive externalities to society, that is, beneficial and detrimental changes in human wellbeing to third parties for which they are not generally compensated or charged. Beneficial externalities include the creation of amenity and landscape and negative...

This report sets out some broad ideas about how poverty evaluation could be conducted for ACIAR research projects. As with good benefit–cost analysis, there are good practices that need to be observed when undertaking poverty analysis. While poverty is a broad concept, and can be addressed...

The prediction of future temperature increases depends critically on the projections of future greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there is a vigorous debate about how these projections should be undertaken and how reasonable is the approach of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES)...