Cost Recovery from Congestion Tolls with Long-run Uncertainty

According to the seminal Cost Recovery Theorem the revenues from congestion tolls pay for the capacity costs of an optimal-sized facility if capacity is perfectly divisible, and if user costs and capacity costs have constant scale economies. This paper extends the Theorem to long-run uncertainty about investment costs, user costs, and demand. It proves that if constant scale economies hold at all times and in all states, and if the toll can be varied freely over time and by state, then expected discounted toll revenues cover expected discounted investment costs over a facility's lifetime. If the marginal cost of investment is constant and investment is reversible, then expected cost recovery is also achieved for each investment. Cost recovery is quite sensitive to estimated initial demand, and moderately sensitive to the estimated growth rate of demand. Natural variability in demand can result in substantial surpluses or deficits over a facility's lifetime.

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Source https://hal.science/hal-00784299
Author Lindsey, Robin, de Palma, André
Maintainer CCSD
Last Updated May 14, 2026, 17:40 (UTC)
Created May 14, 2026, 17:40 (UTC)
Identifier hal-00784299
Language en
Rights https://about.hal.science/hal-authorisation-v1/
contributor Sauder School of Business [British Columbia] (Sauder) ; University of British Columbia [Canada] (UBC)
creator Lindsey, Robin
date 2013-02-01T00:00:00
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harvest_source_id 3374d638-d20b-4672-ba96-a23232d55657
harvest_source_title test moissonnage SELUNE
metadata_modified 2026-02-12T00:00:00
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