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Road Taxes, Road User Charges and Earmarking
Author(s) -
Newbery David M.,
Santos Georgina
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
fiscal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1475-5890
pISSN - 0143-5671
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-5890.1999.tb00006.x
Subject(s) - road pricing , economics , finance , government (linguistics) , public economics , set (abstract data type) , capital (architecture) , business , transport engineering , computer science , engineering , traffic congestion , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , history , programming language
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.