Nathalie Picard

Distributive Politics and Electoral Competition

Abstract Within the framework of pure redistribution (dividing one unit of a homo- geneous good among identical individuals), the paper analyses the redistribution that arises from Downsian, two-party, electoral competition. It appears that the strategic behavior of vote-maximizing parties leads them to propose divisions which are not far from the egalitarian one. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D63, D72.

Equilibria and Information Provision in Risky Networks with Risk-Averse Drivers

We study the impact of information on risk-averse drivers who maximize their expected utility (rather than minimizing expected travel time). For two routes in parallel with risky travel time, we show that equilibrium travel times depend on the distribution of risk aversion as well as on provision of information. Besides the mean variance model used so far in transportation, we consider three other standard utility functions. Interestingly, we find that optimal route choice may depend on global factors such as the length of the journey. Finally, we study the benefit of information according to the level of risk aversion.

Risk Aversion, the Value of Information, and Traffic Equilibrium

Information about traffic conditions has traditionally been conveyed to drivers via radio, variable message signs, and, more recently, the Internet and advanced traveler information systems. This has spurred research on how travelers respond to information, how much they are willing to pay for it, and how much they are likely to benefit from it collectively. In this paper, we analyze the decisions of drivers on whether to acquire information and which routes to take on simple congested road networks. Drivers vary in their degrees of risk aversion with respect to travel time. Four information regimes are considered: no information, free information (publicly available at no cost), costly information (publicly available for a fee), and private information (available free to single individuals). Private information is shown to be individually more valuable than either free or costly information while the benefits from free and costly information cannot be ranked in general. Free or costly information can decrease the expected utility of drivers who are very risk averse; with sufficient risk aversion in the population, the aggregate compensating variation for information can be negative.

Discrete Choice Decision-Making with Multiple Decision Makers within the Household

There is still a long way to achieve the goal of providing a theoretical and empirical framework to model and apply economics of the family. Decision-making within the family has been neglected too long in transportation. Two special issues by Bhat and Pendyala, 2005 [17] and by Timmermans and Junyi Zhang, 2009 [81] provide the most notable exceptions. The objective of this paper is to set-up a flexible framework to discuss the development of integrated transportation models involving interacting and interdependent actors; updating previous reviews from the point of view of economics of the family . Transportation is very keen to have access to this type of models, since their applications are numerous. Let mention, for example, residential location choice, workplace choice, car ownership, choice of childrens school, mode choice, departure time choice activity patterns and the like. The (non unitary) economics of the family models are totally different models, which do not merely extend existing discrete choice models. They introduce new concepts, which are specific to within family interactions: negotiation, altruism, or repeated interaction and Pareto optimality. This review is completed with the study of different types of accessibility measures including recent work on timegeography measures of accessibility.

Route Choice Behaviour with Risk-Averse Users

We study route choice behavior for a simple network consisting in two routes in parallel when the travel time on one route is uncertain. User’s preferences are described by a utility function including a risk aversion parameter. We assume that users select the route with the highest expected utility and therefore we generalize the Wardrop principle. We study the impact of the risk aversion parameter on route choice. Finally, we propose a measure for computing the cost of uncertainty and apply it to a simple example. This analysis provides an alternative method to compute the benefit of Intelligent Traveller Systems.

Effect of an Accessibility Measure in a Model for Choice of Residential Location, Workplace, and Type of Employment

A three-level nested logit model for the choice of residential location, workplace, and type of employment is used to assess the effect of an individual-specific measure of accessibility to employments that takes into account the attractiveness of different occupations when the choice of workplace is anticipated in the decision of residential location. The model allows for variation in the preferences for types of employment across individuals and accounts for individual heterogeneity of preferences at each choice level in education, age, gender, and children. Using data from the Île-de-France region, the model shows that the individual-specific accessibility measure is an important determinant of the choice of residential location and its effect differs along the life cycle. The attractiveness of the types of employment is a better predictor of the workplace location than the usual total number of employments.

Inequality, Welfare and Income Distribution: Experimental Approaches

Why do people violate the transfer principle? Evidence from educational sample surveys (Y. Amiel, F. Cowell, D. Slottje). Efficiency, equity and democracy: Experimental evidence on Okuns Leaky Bucket (S.R. Beckman, J.P. Formby, W.J. Smith). How manipulable are fairness perceptions? The effect of additional alternatives (Y. Bereby-Meyer, B. Grosskopf). An experimental analysis of social mobility comparison (M. Bernasconi, V. Dardanoni). Social welfare, the veil of ignorance and purely individual risk: An empirical examination (K. Bosmans, E. Schokkaert). An experimental study of the POUM hypothesis (D. Checchi, A. Filippin). On the attitude towards inequality (L. Davidovitz, Y. Kroll). Approaching fair behavior: Distributional and reciprocal preferences (A. Kritikos, F. Bolle). Fairness-based altruism and redistribution: An experimental approach (L. Mittone). Inequality and procedural fairness in a money-burning experiment (D. Zizzo).

Social Crisis Prevention: A Political Alert Index for the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Abstract This study presents a novel approach to crisis prevention based on data on premonitory political and religious events and the international media coverage of publicly sensitive circumstances. We implement our method to the Israel-Palestine conflict. First we identify two main political scenarios associated with “good” and “bad” political times of low or high levels of political unrest using a hierarchical clustering technique. Then we construct a political alert index to predict the probability of occurrence of good and bad times. Bad times are positively and significantly associated with the number of Israeli victims at the checkpoints, the number of homeless or injured Palestinians and with the number of demolitions. The number of Palestinian prisoners and injured Israelis negatively affect the probability of occurrence of a bad time. Media coverage is positively and significantly associated with the transition to bad times. Our results show that our statistical tool can be a reliable method for early warning of social crisis and can be effectively replicated to other social crisis situations.

Risk and Uncertainty in Urban and Transport Economics

Urban and transportation economics often require discrete decision making in risky situations. Inoa, Picard, and Palma, in the article ‘‘Effect of an Accessibility Measure in a Model for Choice of Residential Location, Workplace, and Type of Employment,’’ develop discrete choice models to understand residential and professional choices. They study the best way for residents to acquire information in a sequential choice, with an application to Île-deFrance. Xin and Levinson, in their article ‘‘Stochastic Congestion and Pricing Model with Endogenous Departure Time Selection and Heterogeneous Travelers,’’ describe the choice of departure time with risky travel times and simulate its effects on transportation policies. They use the standard dynamic model for this purpose. Cohen, in her article ‘‘Risk Perception, Risk Attitude, and Decision: A Rank-Dependent Analysis,’’ reviews the literature on decision making under risk and uncertainty either with expected or with non-expected utility. She shows how the expected utility model is extended in the context of nonexpected utility theory. Inoa, Picard, and Palma combine discrete choice theory with the modeling of choice in risky alternatives. The decision process is hierarchical. In practice, when the decision maker faces many alternatives, usual economic models are inoperative and both the decision maker and the modeler must simplify and regroup different alternatives concerning residential location choice and employment choices. The authors analyze a three-level decision process: residential location, workplace, and type of employment. If decision is sequential, the information available ex ante, at the first step, is different from the information available ex post, once the first step choice is made.

Editorial: Transport, Risk, and Individual Choices

The history of risk and uncertainty is even shorter in transportation on the demand side, although structural engineers have long integrated risk in their stress analysis. The study of risk in transportation has gained recent popularity. See, for example, the contributions of Avineri and Prashker (2006), Connors and Sumalee (2009), De Borger and Fosgerau (2008), de Palma and Picard (2006), or Nie and Wu (2009). However, much remains to be done to see how to adapt existing behavioral theories of decision making in risky environment in transportation, and to identify the major developments that should be made in this area. We believe that much should be done to introduce behavioral models in a realistic manner in transportation and to apply their underlying ideas to study decision makers facing risky and uncertain environments, in line with what has been done in behavioral finance. We hope that this special issue contributes in this direction. This issue presents some recent developments on the study of behavior when risk and uncertainty are involved. There has been a long discussion about how to model the very concept of probability. Blaise Pascal was probably the first to state clearly how the probability of an event can be computed.