HL 4 Crosstown Traffic ESTERNALITA'

4 Crosstown Traffic
Note:traffico: dove il mercato manca o è imperfetto

Note | Location: 1,272

4@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,276

why did I spend two hours stuck in traffic on the way to work this morning?
Note:PROBLEMI QUOTIDIANI DI UN MONDO SENZA MERCATI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,278

The obvious answer is that, of course, there is no market perfect
Note:CHIARO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,280

because perfect markets provide such a clear benchmark, economists find it much easier to start from them
Note:METODO DI LAVORO X RISOLVERE I PROBLEMI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,282

What’s wrong with my world
Note:tttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,287

Markets fail to work well in the face of scarcity power,
Note:I DIFETTI DEL MERCATO... MONOPOLIO... PRIMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,288

market is dominated by a single company, Microsoft,
Note:ES NEL SOFTWARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,289

lack information.
Note:SECONDO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,289

I would leave my doctor’s surgery with no idea whether he had given me good treatment,
Note:ESEMPIO DI ASIMMETRIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,292

if some people make decisions that affect bystanders:

Note | Location: 1,292

TERZO ESYERNALITÀ...CE NE OCCUPEREMO QUI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,294

‘market failures’:
Note:I TRE GRANDI PROBLEMI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,299

How drivers affect bystanders
Note:Ttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,301

London’s current air pollution is not as severe as the ‘Great Stink’ of the 1850s,
Note:AMMETIAMOLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,303

Around seven thousand people a year die prematurely because of traffic pollution in Britain,
Note:VITTIME

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,305

the cost of delays from congestion are even worse,
Note:MA C È DI PIÙ

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,306

Then there is the noise, the accidents and the ‘barrier effect’,
Note:ALTRO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,321

Different kinds of prices: marginal and average
Note:Ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,323

paid a sizeable annual tax called ‘Vehicle Excise Duty’.
Note:L USO DELL AUTO NN È GRATIS

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,324

Petrol and diesel are also taxed
Note:ALTRI ADDEBITI ALL AUTOMOBILISTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,326

Britain, drivers pay over £30 billion in taxes on cars
Note:NEL COMPLESSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,327

To ask ‘have they paid enough?’ is to ask the wrong question. The right question is, ‘are they paying for the right things?’ The answer is no.
Note:LA DOMANDA GIUSTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,328

The average price that a driver pays for a journey across a city is quite high if the driver is paying an annual licence fee.
Note:CI SONO DUE PREZZI...ECCO IL PRIMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,329

the price that the driver pays for one extra trip across the city is low:
Note:SECONDO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,330

Once you’ve paid for the right to take the car on the street in the first place, you don’t get a discount for low mileage:
Note:IN SINTESI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,333

When I was in college, clubs and societies used to have big parties where some people didn’t drink at all and, less surprisingly, most people drank far too much. This was because there were two types of ticket. ‘Alcoholic’ tickets allowed unlimited boozing after payment of an up-front fee of, say, £10. The other type of ticket was a lot cheaper, and you had to drink rancid orange juice instead and stand in a corner while the drinkers got more and more obnoxious. Turning up and having a couple of beers was a pretty expensive proposition,
Note:BUFFET E PREZZO MEDIO

Note | Location: 1,337

IL PROB DELLE FESTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,347

(a) raising the up-front fee for drinking?, (b) buying better orange juice? or (c) scrapping the up-front fee and charging people for what they drank?
Note:LE TRE SOLUZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,354

(a) raise the upfront fee for driving; (b) supply better ‘orange juice’ (more buses, better trains, cycle routes, pedestrian crossings); or (c) scrap the up-front fee and charge people for the trips they drive.
Note:LE TRE SOLUZIONI NEL CASO DEL TRAFFICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,369

Pricing should reflect the damage
Note:Tttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,370

In most European countries, drivers do pay a tax per mile in the form of a high tax on fuel.
Note:STIAMO SEMPLIFICANDO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,373

but it is the commuters in the London, New York or Paris rush hours who are causing the most serious congestion,
Note:NN TUTTE LE BENZINE SONO UGUALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,397

The trick is to mimic perfect markets by getting drivers to pay all of the costs of their actions:
Note:LA SOLUZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,406

Two objections to externality charges
Note:Tttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,409

the pro-car lobby argues that drivers pay enough,
Note:PRIMA CONTESTAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,411

the rich will still be able to do whatever it was that was objectionable.
Note:ALTRA OBIEZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,418

it is just as true that the rich can afford to eat more than the poor.
Note:NATURAL

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,418

if you accept the workings of the price system for typical goods like food, why not road space or clean air?
Note:Ccccccccccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,422

in the United Kingdom, poor people do not drive – they bicycle, walk or take the bus.
Note:REDISTRIB IN SENSO GIUSTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,426

in the United States, where the poor still drive a lot
Note:PURTROPPO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,427

externality charges can be designed not to redistribute very much.
Note:TENERE CONTO DEL VEICOLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,434

they feel that pollution should simply be illegal, rather than illegal for the poor
Note:CERTI AMBIENTALISTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,436

A partial response is to say that even the rich do not pollute for fun.
Note:PRIMA RISPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,440

A congestion charge can be set at £1 a day, or £10 a day or £1000 a day.
Note:SECONDA RISPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,445

government could give everybody vouchers, which allow them to drive up to twenty miles per week. The immediate result of such a plan is that some people, mostly poor, would want to sell their vouchers to others, mostly rich:
Note:I VOUCHER NN AFFRONTANO LA CRITICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,450

Other alternatives such as high parking charges are probably less efficient still,
Note:ALTERNATIVE INEFFICIENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,451

the relationship between driving and parking is rather indirect.
Note:Ccccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,457

How much is your life worth?
Note:Tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,458

the level of any externality charge is bound to be a matter for controversy.
Note:IL PROBLEMA CANONICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,461

a different charge, which would be imposed for every trip,
Note:NECESSARIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,466

That sounds complicated.
Note:Ccccc SUV...VEICOLI PESANTI...VEICOLI INQUINANTI...INQ LOCALE..GW...

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,467

imagine each car having a little computer
Note:SOLUZIONE SCATOLA NERA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,470

But there is another difficulty: working out what the costs of the externalities really are.
Note:QUI SÌ CHE COMINCIANO LE DIFFICOLTÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,479

Every policy the government adopts, and every individual choice you make, implies that a valuation has been made,
Note: È DA Invece USI PENSARE DI SCAMPARE A QS PROBLEMI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,482

If you pay more to avoid a noisy area when you rent a flat or a hotel room,
Note:ES

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,486

Should the government install extra street signs and markings, or spend more money on speed cameras,
Note:ALTRO ES

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,492

Economists have a theory of ‘revealed preference’,
Note:LA COSA MIGLIORE È GUARDARE AI COMP REALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,500

House prices contain embedded information about the value people place on all kinds of amenities: shops, greenery, low crime, quiet, the sun through the window in the morning and so on.
Note:FONTI INCORPORATE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,503

wages can reveal information if there is a salary differential for jobs with very similar skill requirements but different levels of danger.
Note:ALTRA FONTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,514

Two different gaps in our knowledge
Note:Tttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,516

we also do not know the cheapest way of reducing noise, accidents, pollution and congestion. It is with this second gap that externality pricing comes into its own.
Note:L IGNORANZA CHE LA TASSA PREZZO PRENDE DI PETTO...IL VERO VANTAGGIO DELLA SOLUZIONE PIGOU

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,525

The New Orleans effect
Note:Ttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,529

dingy houses in response to the policy, in force from 1696 to 1851, of taxing people according to the number of windows their homes had.
Note:LE CASE DELLA PERIFERIA INGLESE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,534

Congestion charging can change the small decisions we make every week about whether to drive to a supermarket, or catch the bus, or walk to a local store or buy food on the internet.
Note:LA TASSA LAVORA SUL PICCOLO E SI ESPANDE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,537

There’s also a domino effect here, as changes in behaviour reinforce each other.
Note:CONTAGIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,539

If more people try to save the congestion charge by working at home a couple of days a week or commuting at a different time of day, more companies will find ways of accommodating them.
Note:ESEMPIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,542

The attractive thing about externality pricing is that it attacks the problem but makes no assumption about the solution.
Note:IL BELLO È CHE NOI NN CONOSCIAMO LA SOLUZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,549

After a year, car journeys fell by nearly a third.
Note:2003 LONDON INTRODUCE LA TASA...REAZIONE VELOCE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,555

Battling pollution on the cheap
Note:Ttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,556

In the 1990s the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States discovered how cost-effectively an externality charge could fight pollution when it decided to attack acid rain.
Note:UN ESPERIENZA POSITIVA...INQUINAMENTO DA SOLFURI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,566

They set up an auction for the right to emit sulphur dioxide, which causes acid rain. Polluters were given a quota
Note:ASTA X CAPIRE IL VALORE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,568

When the EPA simply tried to tell them to install sulphur scrubbers, the power generators argued that it would be very expensive to do so,
Note:DICEVANO PLA VERITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,572

The regulators discovered that getting rid of sulphur dioxide was so cheap that few people were willing to pay much for the right to
Note:LA SCOPERTA GRAZIE ALLE ASTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,579

There is massive controversy about how much emission reduction will cost, but an auction of permits to extract oil, coal and gas would soon start to tell us.
Note:PARALLELO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,587

many economists believe that, like sulphur permits in California, the carbon permits would quickly reveal that decarbonisation is cheaper than we expected,
Note:PRONOSTICI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,589

Is the environment too important to be a moral issue?
Note:Ttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,593

‘How did you travel here today? We need to know for our carbon offset programme.’
Note:UNA QUESTIONE MORALE O PRAGMATICA?

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,604

Why would an environmental charity organise a carbon-neutral meeting?
Note:CHE C ENTRANO LORO?

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,608

In other words, why be ‘carbon-neutral’ when you can be ‘carbon-optimal’,
Note:IL QUESITO DELL ECONOMISTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,614

An unkind view would be that it was indulging in moral posturing.
Note:VANITÀ?

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,616

an environmental charity can be directly connected to the fact that public policies do not make evident the environmental costs of our actions.
Note:UN IPOTESI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,620

Which is worse: disposable nappies (which clog up landfill sites) or washable nappies (where the washing process uses electricity and releases polluting detergents)?

Note | Location: 1,621

COL MORALISMO CI SI FICCA FIOCA N UN GINEPRAIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,632

Electricity generation that contributed to climate change would be taxed, too, which would raise electricity prices unless we could develop cleaner fuels.
Note:FORSE È UNA QS REDISTRIBUTIVA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,638

Being positive
Note:Ttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,643

If Belinda opens an attractive pavement café, the streets are more pleasant to walk along,
Note:ESTERNALITÀ POSITIVE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,649

Just as negative externalities will tend to lead to too much pollution or congestion, positive externalities will leave us undervaccinated with scruffy neighbours and a dearth of pleasant cafés.
Note:BELINDA FALLISCE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,653

instead of an externality charge, an externality subsidy.
Note:SOLUZIONE SIMMETRICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,654

Vaccinations, for example, are often subsidised by governments or by aid agencies; scientific research, too, usually gets a big dose of government funding.
Note:ESEMPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,657

Too much of a good thing? Solving externalities without the government
Note:Tttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,658

I may complain about my neighbour’s tree damaging my wall, but if it really bothers me I can pay him to let me cut it down.
Note:COASE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,663

Externalities simply aren’t externalities if people can easily get together and negotiate.
Note:TRANSAZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,689

the positive externality has been dealt with twice over, once by a government subsidy and once by a process of bargaining.
Note:UN PROBLEMA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,692

If the government taxes my neighbour’s dirty petrol-driven lawnmower and I also offer to pay him to get rid of it because I dislike the noise and smell, the combination of the taxes and my own offer may persuade him to ditch the monster, even though the fun and convenience he gets from the thing outweigh any damage to anybody else and he really should be keeping it.
Note:UN CASO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,698

Government-imposed externality charging is far more likely to be appropriate in situations where a negotiation over the externality will not work, as in the case of the noise from low-flying aircraft.
Note:QUANDO DEVE INTERVENIRE IL GOVERNO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,705

Epilogue: what is economics really about?
Note:Ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,716

A pollution tax might well make a number like GDP smaller. But who cares? Certainly not economists. We know that GDP measures lots of things that are harmful (sales of weapons, shoddy building
Note:CHI SI LAMENTA DELLE TASSE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,718

Most economics has very little to do with GDP. Economics is about who gets what and why.
PESANTE!!!!