Ioulia V. Ossokina

Cost-benefit analysis of railway station area development: The case of Amsterdam South Axis

Development of railway station areas has for several years been an important issue on the Dutch spatial policy agenda. National and local governments have been financially supporting the development of the areas around the stations of the new High-Speed Rail, the railway connection from Amsterdam to France and Germany. The projects in question are designed to create a multifunctional land use environment in which synergy effects of the combination of the transport nodes with business and residential land uses can arise.1 This chapter evaluates the welfare effects of probably the most ambitious of these projects, that which involves urban construction and infrastructural investment in the Amsterdam South Axis area. In this project the transport infrastructure on both sides of the railway station Amsterdam South/WTC is to be brought underground, thus creating extra space for high quality urban construction. The expectation is that this change in the pattern of land use in the South Axis will have positive effects on the utility of residents and productivity of companies in the area, and subsequently on the value of real estate there.2

Environmental Policy Choice under Uncertainty

Market-based instruments are believed to create more efficient incentives for firms to adopt new technologies than command-and-control policies. We compare the effects of a direct technology regulation and of an adoption subsidy under asymmetric information about the costs of technological advances in pollution control. We show that the policy maker may want to commit to her policy. The reason is that uncertainty about adoption costs induces the policy maker to set subsidy levels that increase over time; firms, expecting higher subsidies in the future, postpone investment. Direct regulation offers a commitment possibility that allows to prevent firms from postponing investment.