Road Taxes,Road User Charges and Earmarking

The UK Road Fund was set up in 1921 and financed by earmarked taxes, but was unsuccessful as a form of road finance and abandoned in 1937. The paper examines why earmarking failed and what problems arise for replacing road taxes by hypothecated road charges. These charges would need to be regulated and could evolve into a more efficient system of road pricing. The paper claims that recent experiences with regulating capital-intensive network industries make road user charging and the commercialisation of the public highway both feasible and desirable, but that recent government proposals for local earmarked taxes are inadequate.     

Citation analysis in research on differential item functioning

This paper offers a first approach to the study of citing behaviour in the literature on differential item functioning (DIF) and provides new information about the main characteristics that define that behaviour. With a focus on articles listed in the Web of Science for the period 1975–2000, the present research considers the number of self-citations included in each paper with respect to other bibliometric indicators such as year of publication, the number of signatories to a paper, author’s country of origin and the journal in which it was published. In general terms it can be concluded that in studies of DIF the mean percentage of self-citations is around 11%, this figure remaining stable over time; there is a positive correlation between the number of signatories to an article and the number of self-citations. This paper has offered a first approach to the study of citing behaviour in the literature on DIF.     

Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Service Assessments

The paper seeks to contribute to the expanding literature on ecosystem service assessment by considering its integration with economic analyses of such services. Focussing upon analyses for future orientated policy and decision making, we initially consider a single period during which ecological stocks are maintained at sustainable levels. The flow of ecosystems services and their contribution to welfare bearing goods is considered and methods for valuing resultant benefits are reviewed and illustrated via a case study of land use change. We then broaden our time horizon to discuss the treatment of future costs and benefits. Finally we relax our sustainability assumption and consider economic approaches to the incorporation of depleting ecological assets with a particular focus upon stocks which exhibit thresholds below which restoration is compromised.