Aviation Markets: Studies in Competition and Regulatory Reform is a collection of 17 papers selected from David Starkie's extensive writings over the last 25 years. Previously published material has been extensively edited and adapted, and combined with new material, published here for the first time. The book is divided into five sections, each featuring an original overview chapter, to better establish the background and also explain the papers' wider significance including, wherever appropriate, their relevance to current policy issues. These papers have been selected to illustrate a significant theme that has been relatively neglected thus far in both aviation and industrial economics: the role of the market and its interplay with the development of economic policy in the context of a dynamic but partly price regulated industry. The result provides a strong flavour of how market mechanisms, and particularly competition, can operate to successfully resolve policy issues. The book will be of interest to academics and those engaged in the formulation of aviation policy, such as public administrators and consultants, as well as those working in the aviation industry. It is also relevant to economic studies in a more general context, particularly to students and practitioners in industrial organisation economics, including those studying and researching the public utility industries.

Aviation Markets: Studies in Competition and Regulatory Reform is a collection of 17 papers selected from David Starkie's extensive writings over the last 25 years. Previously published material has been extensively edited and adapted, and combined with new material, published here for the first time. The book is divided into five sections, each featuring an original overview chapter, to better establish the background and also explain the papers' wider significance including, wherever appropriate, their relevance to current policy issues. These papers have been selected to illustrate a significant theme that has been relatively neglected thus far in both aviation and industrial economics: the role of the market and its interplay with the development of economic policy in the context of a dynamic but partly price regulated industry. The result provides a strong flavour of how market mechanisms, and particularly competition, can operate to successfully resolve policy issues. The book will be of interest to academics and those engaged in the formulation of aviation policy, such as public administrators and consultants, as well as those working in the aviation industry. It is also relevant to economic studies in a more general context, particularly to students and practitioners in industrial organisation economics, including those studying and researching the public utility industries.

This tour d'horizon book reviews airport regulation and competition in different regions of the world and contrasts different policy perspectives. Organized in four parts, the first three examine, in turn, Australasia, North America, and Europe, while the last section looks at the institutional reforms that have taken place in these regions. The book covers the regulation of airports, and competition in different regions, as well as privatization policy, the interaction between airports and airlines, and regional economic impacts. It also examines the linkages between governance structures and forms of regulation. The book's global sweep embraces all the large aviation markets, bringing together the ideas and challenges of academic economists, airlines, airport managers, consultants and government regulators. As well as looking at different methods, degrees and paradigms of regulation it also spells out the stress-points, in a way that makes essential reading for airport operators, airline operations staff, as well as academic economists concerned with transport studies. It also offers interesting reading and important lessons for those concerned with regulation of the utility industries such as, telecommunications, water and power generation and distribution - where infrastructure can be subject to natural monopoly characteristics and where firms competing in downstream markets are dependent on the investment and operational strategies of the upstream infrastructure operator.

The 1977 BTE Report on Cost Recovery in Australian Transport 1974-75 provided estimates of the aggregate level of financial cos~ recovery in the various modes, by broad transport task. It suggested that there were substantial differences between modes in the level of cost recovery. The 1979 Transport Pricing and Cost Recovery seminar concluded that economic efficiency objectives required more attention 1n transport pricing and investment decisions than had been apparent in the past. The principles for economically efficient pricing were spelt out, and several specific issues were identified, which are worth following up in this seminar. These include reconciliation of financial and econom1C efficiency objectives and the identification of appropriate revenue targets; specification of the changes 1n accounting and management information systems which would be required to implement more economically rational pricing; and identification of the principles for estimating compensation for public service obligations. Finally, a brief account 18 given of recent BTE work on cost recovery in general aviation, and in road and rail transport. BTE has suggested that econom1C efficiency considerations would require substantial modification to the present means of collecting revenue from general aviation, with more reliance placed on direct pricing measures like flight-specific alr navigation charges and airport movement charges. On road-rail competition, an order of magnitude comparison of road and rail cost recovery in the Adelaide-Victorian border corridor suggests that only the road mode approximately covers short-run avoidable costs and that both modes fail to cover long-run avoidable costs.

The 1977 BTE Report on Cost Recovery in Australian Transport 1974-75 provided estimates of the aggregate level of financial cos~ recovery in the various modes, by broad transport task. It suggested that there were substantial differences between modes in the level of cost recovery. The 1979 Transport Pricing and Cost Recovery seminar concluded that economic efficiency objectives required more attention 1n transport pricing and investment decisions than had been apparent in the past. The principles for economically efficient pricing were spelt out, and several specific issues were identified, which are worth following up in this seminar. These include reconciliation of financial and econom1C efficiency objectives and the identification of appropriate revenue targets; specification of the changes 1n accounting and management information systems which would be required to implement more economically rational pricing; and identification of the principles for estimating compensation for public service obligations. Finally, a brief account 18 given of recent BTE work on cost recovery in general aviation, and in road and rail transport. BTE has suggested that econom1C efficiency considerations would require substantial modification to the present means of collecting revenue from general aviation, with more reliance placed on direct pricing measures like flight-specific alr navigation charges and airport movement charges. On road-rail competition, an order of magnitude comparison of road and rail cost recovery in the Adelaide-Victorian border corridor suggests that only the road mode approximately covers short-run avoidable costs and that both modes fail to cover long-run avoidable costs.

The M1 Motorway opened 60 years ago and in this timely history of the Motorway Age, David Starkie provides a fascinating history of how and why post war Britain was transformed by new roads, bridges and tunnels. From Prime Minister Clement Attlee to Margret Thatcher the policy agenda is unfolded, showing that alongside atomic power and Concorde, the new technology of motorways captured the imagination of the nation before collapsing into controversy. But why were elaborate road schemes first considered necessary; why an early concentration on building roads between cities; how did cities cope in the meantime with a rising tide of traffic; how did they continue to cope once road plans were abandoned; how did policies translate into decisions to build particular roads and when to build them, and did political considerations dominate? This generously illustrated book focuses on these and similar issues, picking out the most important events and personalities involved and provides a valuable insight into 'how' and 'why' road policies changed during the forty years following the Second World War.