We study the political economy of urban traffic policy. We consider a city and its suburbs. The city decides, by majority voting, on a parking charge in the Central Business District (CBD) and restrictions on road space dedicated to cars. City and suburbs vote on road pricing in the CBD. Results...

This paper studies the political economy of urban traffic policy. A city council and a regional government (representing city and suburbs) decide respectively on parking fees and a road toll. Both charges are below the optimum when median voters in city and suburbs prefer cars to public...

This paper studies the political economy of cordon tolls in a monocentric city consisting of three zones: center, mid-city and suburbs. The cordon toll may give rise to several interrelated conflicts: between residents within and outside the cordon, between car and public transport users,...

We develop a positive theory of pricing car access (by parking fees or cordon tolls) to downtown commercial districts. The model accounts for the special interests of downtown retailers and competing superstores at the edge of the city, and studies how lobbying by both groups shapes the...

Political acceptability is the primary obstacle to implementation of road pricing in many cities. This paper studies the political economy of urban road pricing in its most common incarnation: cordon tolling. We relate voters' preferences for the road toll to its impact on the city's land...

This paper studies the political economy of cordon tolls, the most common form of road pricing in cities. We consider a monocentric city inhabited by renters and resident-landowners. A cordon toll raises the rental price of land within the cordon, and it reduces rents outside this area. Hence,...