Income taxes and urban spatial structure

This paper examines the impact of an income tax in a monocentric city where households equilibriate their allocation of time between work, commuting, and leisure. An increase in the income tax rate lowers the implicit value of time, and hence transportation costs. “Compensated equilibrium” comparative statics analysis shows that under certain conditions, this results in a larger, more dispersed urban area, with lower land rents at the city center and less population within any given distance from the center. The welfare effect of an income tax rate change is also studied, and an expression for the marginal excess burden is derived. The income tax produces welfare losses both because it induces substitution in favor of leisure and in favor of travel—the latter accompanied by excessive spatial dispersion and consumption of space. The marginal excess burden depends not only on the compensated demand elasticity for leisure, but also on that for space. Finally, the problem of benefit measurement for transportation projects in this tax-distorted spatial economy is examined. Benefit measures should be deflated to adjust for the fact that further transportation improvements lead to reduction of land use intensity, exacerbating the problem of spatial resource misallocation in an already excessively dispersed urban area.     

城市经济与交通结构互动关系研究

经济总量和居民收入的提高,一方面为城市加快交通建设提供了必要的物质基础:另一方面也引发交通需求在数量和质量上均发生了深刻的变化。现阶段居民用于交通方面的支出逐年提高,通勤以外非基本出行的需求迅速增加,对交通服务的要求也越来越高。本文通过对经济发展与私人交通、经济发展与公共交通两方面阐明城市经济与交通结构的互动关系,为寻求城市发展与交通发展之间的协调机制,逐步建立适宜的交通结构目标奠定理论基础和可能的技术途径。     

Comparative statics analysis of a fully closed city

This paper extends the existing comparative statics analysis about open or semiclosed cities, notably that of W. Wheaton [J. Econom. Theor., 9 (2), 223–237 (1974)], to a fully closed city, where urban land rent is redistributed to the city population. Specifically, we examine the effects on changes in exogenous variables, such as population size, agricultural rent, and initial endowments, on endogenous variables such as welfare level, city size, and rent schedule. Most, but not all, of the existing results are reestablished. Surprisingly, it is shown that, in contrast to the existing literature, and perhaps to intuition, the city area may shrink when the city population increases. The paper also extends the existing literature by analyzing the effect of the exogenous variables on the endogenous income and the demand for transportation. It is shown that, under plausible assumptions, the quantity of transportation demanded declines with its price.     

The effect of reimbursement of worker's transport costs: The case of urban areas in Japan

In some economies, workers are compensated for their commuting costs to the workplace. The spatial structure of an urban area is analyzed comparing a transport cost compensated system to one where expenses are borne by workers. Profit maximizing behavior by firms results in lower wages being paid in the city where transport costs are compensated. It is shown that worker renters achieve a higher level of utility in the area where transport costs are not compensated. Numerical examples are constructed using a range of parameter values which yields measures of the increase in spatial size of the city where transport costs are compensated. The loss in welfare is also evaluated.     

Transportation system change and urban structure in two-transport mode setting

This paper analyzes the impacts of a transportation system change on urban spatial structure in the case where there are two competitive transport modes. Furthermore the effect of improvement of the transportation system on users' welfare is examined and compared between two modes.     

The golden rule of urban transportation investment

The purpose of this paper is to find an optimal taxation rule for transportation investment in an ever growing urban economy. First we dynamize a standard circular-city model with identical residents by introducing population growth and transportation improvements over time. Assuming that utility functions are of a constant-elasticity form and transportation investment is financed by an income tax, we prove the existence, uniqueness and stability of a balanced growth equilibrium for each given tax rate. Then, an optimal tax rate is determined so as to maximize the balanced growth equilibrium level of utility for every resident in the city. It is also shown that our simple rule remains valid in the case of two income classes.     

住房、交通与城市空间规划

首先归纳了城市空间结构理论框架下居住模式和交通体系空间互动关系的基本理论,之后对国际学术界相关的定量研究成果进行了综述,着重讨论了住房与交通相互作用所形成的社会效应,包括对居民住房支付能力、中低收入者福利和环境的影响,最后提出了住房和交通相协调的城市空间规划的三个目标,并就我国目前的实际情况提出了若干政策建议.     

Capitalization,population movement,and the local public sector: a probabilistic analysis

Using data collected from household interviews in a 1965 San Francisco Bay Area Transportation Study, a probabilistic model is developed to explain the relationship between population movement and the capitalization of changes in the public sector in the price of housing. This model is constructed to compare 2 competing explanations for the flight of higher income households to the suburbs: 1) the accessibility model and 2) the flight from blight model. The accessibility model explains the decay of cities as a natural outgrowth of decreasing transportation costs, whereas the flight from blight model suggests that the wealthy leave the central city for the suburbs because of urban decay. An analysis of the San Francisco data demonstrates that high income households are more sensitive than the rest of the population to changes in the median income of the neighborhood and in expenditures and general government and education, but less sensitive to changes in property tax rate and expenditures on public safety, parks, and recreation. It is unlikely that undesirable changes in the public sector will result in a mass exodus of higher income households; capitalization in the price of housing appears sufficient to prevent this. The 2 models combined help explain the flight from the central cities, while the combined variables increase the logit estimation's prediction of bids for housing.     

消费对经济增长的拉动作用研究——基于城乡消费结构的比较

消费是一个国家经济增长的源动力,是公民福利增加的源泉,如何发挥消费对经济的拉动作用已成为学术界研究的热点问题。基于城乡消费结构比较的视角,就消费对经济的拉动作用以及我国城乡居民消费结构的差异进行了研究,结果显示：消费对经济增长具有积极的拉动作用;居民收入水平较低、收入水平差距较大是我国城乡居民消费对经济增长拉动作用较小的重要原因;我国城乡居民的消费结构存在差别,主要原因在于城乡收入水平的差别,持续强劲的居民消费需要以居民的收入持续增加为基础。为此,应从提高居民收入水平、减小城乡居民收入差距、建立完善的医疗保障体系、合理的消费引导等方面来改善城乡居民的消费结构,以真正发挥消费对经济增长的促进作用。     

Modal choice,location demand,and income

W. Alonso's monocentric city model (″Location and Land Use,″ Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1964)) is extended to explain the simultaneous choice of residential location, housing quantity, and work trip mode. Mode is conceived of as a continuous choice variable, each mode being characterized by a speed and a fare. Mode is shown not to be independent of location, so that location “prices” should be included in the mode demand equations used in urban transportation planning. Comparative statics of the model with respect to income are presented. The earlier finding that the effect of income increase on location is indeterminate is confirmed.     

Political economy of commuting subsidies

We study the political economy of commuting subsidies in a model of a monocentric city with two income classes. Depending on housing demand and transport costs, either the rich or the poor live in the central city and the other group in the suburbs. Commuting subsidies increase the net income of those with long commutes or high transport costs. They also affect land rents and therefore the income of landowners. The paper studies how the locational pattern of the two income classes and the incidence of landownership affects the support for commuting subsidies.     

城市规模与居民幸福感的关系

利用2002年中国家庭收入调查数据,实证检验了城市规模与居民主观幸福度的关系。结果显示,二者存在显著的倒U形关系,随着城市规模的扩大,居民主观幸福感先增加,当城市规模达到一定程度,居民主观幸福感将降低。     

The general equilibrium effects of congestion externalities

This is the second in a series of three articles on the topic of congestion externalities. We use an urban general-equilibrium model to compute two types of cities: the market-equilibrium city, in which congestion externalities occur, and the optimum city. The optimum city has a more dispersed distribution of employment, and a more concentrated distribution of residence. If the population of the city is fixed, the optimum pricing of transportation generates a per capita welfare gain of $3.78 per week. If the population of the city is endogenous, the internalization of congestion externalities causes the city to grow.     

Optimal density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city with endogenous residential distribution and housing prices

This paper proposes an analytical urban system equilibrium model for optimizing the density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city. The proposed model involves four types of agents: local authorities, property developers, households and household workers (i.e. commuters). The local authorities aim to maximize the total social welfare of the urban system by determining the optimal density of radial major roads in the city. The property developers seek to determine the intensity of their capital investment in the land market to maximize the net profit generated from the housing supply. The households choose residential locations that maximize their utility within a budget constraint, and the commuters choose the radial major roads that minimize their individual costs of travel between home and workplace. A heuristic solution procedure is developed to find the urban system equilibrium solution. A system optimum model is also proposed to optimize the density of radial major roads that maximizes the social welfare of the urban system. The proposed model can endogenously determine household residential distribution and land values across the city, along with the housing market structure in terms of housing prices and space. Numerical comparative static analyses of congestion pricing and road infrastructure investment (adding a new radial major road) are carried out together with evaluation of the effects of the service level of radial major roads, urban population size, and household income level on the urban economy.     

The effects of transportation system improvements on urban performances with heterogeneous residents

Through developing a spatial equilibrium model for a linear monocentric city with a bi-modal traffic corridor (i.e., highway and public transit), this paper examines the effects of transportation improvements (including the decreases of the fixed travel cost, the travel time and monetary cost per unit distance) on urban spatial structure and the utilities of the two resident classes, namely car-available-residents (CARs) and car-unavailable-residents (CURs). As a result, it is demonstrated that the city size increases with the improvements of vehicle-highway system and the degree of CARs’ travel mode choice rationality, but the improvement of public transit may produce a shrinkage rather than an expansion in city size. From the aspect of utility, both CARs and CURs benefit from the improvement of vehicle-highway system; however, the improvement of public transit might have an adverse effect on the utility of CARs. These findings would provide valuable reference for the future transportation and urban planning.     

Determinants of urban population density functions: a procedure for efficient estimates

A model of urban population density functions is proposed that uses all available data on densities in urban areas. "This model postulates that population density at each census tract in each city is determined by city size, transportation costs, land supply, income and age of city." The model is applied to data on cities in Israel.     

基于Zigbee的新型城市公交服务通信系统

在分析城市公交服务系统发展现状的基础上,剖析城市智能公交系统的设计需求,设计了一种基于Zigbee的新型城市智能公交通信系统。采用Zigbee、WiMAX通信技术,系统性能可靠,功耗小、组网成本低,能够有效提高城市公交系统运营效率。     

The impact of transportation cost uncertainty on urban structure

Under an uncertain transportation cost, residential choice is made before the actual state of the world reveals itself. Formally, this resembles the theory of saving under uncertainty. Exploring this resemblance, we investigate the effect on urban structure of introducing uncertainty in transportation cost. Our main conclusion is that risk does not necessarily have the same effect on the city that an increase in transportation cost does in the deterministic case. If the utility function obeys the ‘principle of decreasing risk aversion to concentration’, introducing risk causes the urban area to contract (as in the case of an increasing transportation cost), but the equilibrium utility level may either increase or decrease. If, on the other hand, utility does not satisfy the above principle, introducing risk causes the utility level to decline (as if the case of an increasing transportation cost), but the urban area may either expand or contract.     

国内外综合交通枢纽规划设计的启示

当前,世界经济取得了高速的发展,综合交通枢纽是各种交通方式和城市两者共同发展到一定阶段的产物,是城市发展的重要门户。综合交通枢纽主要有铁路、公路、城市轨道和机场四类综合交通枢纽,其规划设计要依靠多个部门的共同协作,遵循环保、节约、人性的原则。本文主要通过分析国内外典型的案例,总结出交通枢纽规划设计的原则、理念、经验和一些启示。     

城市交通及其塑造城市形态的功能——以北京市为例

城市交通与城市形态之间存在着复杂的相互作用关系。特定的城市形态必定要求特定的城市交通模式与其相适应;而城市交通又具有引导城市形态发展、塑造城市形态的功能。从交通方式与城市形态、城市交通与城市土地使用的相互作用机制、城市交通设施建设的时机和时序对城市形态的影响等方面,分析交通与城市形态之间的关系,同时为解决北京的交通和城市发展问题提供思路。