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Introduction
Ph.D. Leeds University, U.K. Professor of Economics at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and Cost-Benefit Analysis for postgraduate students at the University Carlos III de Madrid. Affiliated researcher at FEDEA (Madrid). Prof. de Rus has collaborated or collaborates, among other institutions, with the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 1991 - present
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- Professor of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Education
October 1985 - October 1989
Publications
Publications (135)
En una economía moderna, con la mayoría de los mercados de transporte operando en competencia, la intervención del Estado, en el campo de las infraestructuras, sigue siendo necesaria por razones de planificación de las redes y de ordenación del territorio, impactos medioambientales, seguridad y por razones de equidad, por ejemplo, con el fin de gar...
Transport projects can be typically contemplated as exogenous interventions in transport markets, which move the economy from one equilibrium to another, commonly through the reduction of the generalized price (composed of monetary price, time, and other disutility components) borne by transport users. This chapter describes two methods for the ass...
Pricing and investment decisions are not independent. Pricing affects demand and, hence, social welfare. The social profitability of the project can be quite different depending on the pricing policy. Therefore, before deciding whether it is socially worthy to invest in a transport project, the team responsible for a project evaluation needs to kno...
In this chapter, we use the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to evaluate transport investments. In particular, we focus on high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure projects. There are many social benefits associated with HSR. Although they are not always easy to identify and measure, they typically include time savings for passengers, fewer cars on the road...
In this chapter, we use the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to evaluate subsidies in transport markets. The CBA of any public intervention requires the comparison of the situations with and without intervention, identifying winners and losers, and carefully analysing the key parameters that would allow the public policy to induce the desired effects in...
El análisis coste-beneficio es la herramienta de evaluación socio-económica más extendida. Es consustancial con la manera de pensar del economista. Su filosofía es consecuencialista y su objetivo es la estimación del efecto neto sobre el bienestar de los proyectos y políticas públicas. Sus criterios prácticos de evaluación proceden de la teoría del...
Only projects with net social benefits should be approved. This simple idea is the reason why the economic appraisal of projects can contribute to social welfare and the rationale for the existence of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) as a tool for guiding choice. Subjective decisions, based on goodwill and intuition, are not a sensible guide for public...
In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of ad valorem and specific subsidies for resident passengers in air transport markets. A fixed discount per trip and route is always superior to the ad valorem alternative. We prove that the effectiveness of the subsidy for resident passengers strongly depends on the particular characteristics of the route,...
El Anteproyecto de Ley de Movilidad Sostenible (ALMS) que analizamos en este
informe considera que ahora se trata de “evolucionar desde la política de transportes a la
política de movilidad sostenible de personas y mercancías que ha de guardar relación con las políticas económicas, sociales y ambientales”. El ALMS se refiere a la movilidad de perso...
The economic appraisal of transport projects is commonly based on the calculation of time savings, operating cost reduction, avoided accidents, quality improvements, and project costs. This is the change in willingness to pay and resources approach. This paper describes this method for the assessment of the economic effects of any project and then...
El presente documento trata de caracterizar las vías de modernización de la Administración pública española que deberían seguirse para conseguir una reforma exitosa. Se consideran, sucesivamente, las siguientes áreas: 1) recursos humanos,
2) digitalización de la Administración, 3) colaboración público-privada, 4) transparencia en la gestión pública...
El presente informe busca contribuir a concretar y mejorar las propuestas para generalizar y reforzar los procesos de evaluación de las políticas públicas incluidas en el Plan de Recuperación. Con este fin, ofrecemos algunas reflexiones generales sobre por qué es necesario evaluar las actuaciones públicas, quién habría de encargarse de la tarea y c...
Análisis coste-beneficio es un manual destinado a estudiantes de posgrado y últimos años de carrera, así como a los profesionales implicados en la evaluación económica de proyectos.
Este texto recoge los elementos clave para un análisis detallado y certero, sin olvidar entrar en las más recientes discusiones en torno a los impactos económicos más a...
A principios del pasado mes de mayo, el Gobierno español hizo públicos los detalles del llamado Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia (de aquí en adelante, Plan de Recuperación, o simplemente Plan para abreviar) que acababa de enviar a la Comisión Europea para su análisis y posible aprobación. La documentación sobre el Plan que está di...
'Ginés de Rus has produced an excellent book which will be very useful to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in public economics as well as to professional economists working with project evaluations. The book can serve as a manual for how to undertake best-practice project analysis within a broad range of projects but in particular withi...
High-speed rail (HSR) is a mass transport technology for medium distance intercity mobility. It requires an expensive and dedicated infrastructure only compatible, to be economically sustainable, with high volumes of demand to compensate the sunk costs of its construction. Practically, all the HSR lines in the world are far from breaking even, abso...
Este documento es el informe final del Grupo de Trabajo Mixto Covid-19 (GTMC). En
él se defiende la necesidad de alcanzar un amplio pacto político y social en torno a una
estrategia para salir lo antes posible de la crisis y sentar las bases para hacer frente a los
complicados retos económicos y sociales a los que nos enfrentamos a medio y largo
pl...
Este documento es la versión abreviada del informe final del Grupo de Trabajo Mixto
Covid-19 (GTMC). En él se defiende la necesidad de alcanzar un amplio pacto político
y social en torno a una estrategia para salir lo antes posible de la crisis y sentar las bases
para hacer frente a los complicados retos económicos y sociales a los que nos
enfrenta...
Cualquier mejora en las infraestructuras o servicios de transporte que se obtenga como resultado de un proyecto de inversión o de un cambio en las políticas existentes en dicho sector puede analizarse, desde el punto de vista económico, como una intervención exógena en los mercados de transporte, que desplaza el equilibrio inicial de la economía de...
La evaluación económica de un proyecto de inversión en el sector ferroviario se
sustenta sobre los mismos principios de análisis coste-beneficio (ACB) que se aplican a
otros modos de transporte. Sin embargo, estas normas generales también deberían tener
en cuenta las peculiaridades técnicas y económicas de un sector que no solo se
caracteriza por o...
A lo largo de este informe demostramos que la eficacia de cualquier política orientada a
aumentar la conectividad aérea de los residentes depende en gran medida de las
características particulares de cada ruta, tales como el nivel de competencia, la
proporción de pasajeros residentes, la forma de las funciones de demanda de los
residentes y los no...
Transport improvements, as a consequence of both investment projects and policies, can be typically contemplated as exogenous interventions in transport markets, which move the economy from one equilibrium to another, commonly through the reduction of the generalized price (monetary price, time, and other disutility components) borne by transport u...
The economic assessment of rail investment projects relies on the same cost-benefit analysis (CBA) principles that are applied in other transport modes. However, these general rules should also take into account the technical and economic peculiarities of a sector which is defined not only by its capacity to provide fast and regular services to a l...
Throughout this document, we prove that the effectiveness of any policy aiming at increasing residents’ air connectivity strongly depends on the particular characteristics of the route, such as the level of competition, the proportion of resident passengers, the shape of residents’ and non-residents’ demand functions, airlines’ operating costs, etc...
Este documento es el quinto informe del Grupo de Trabajo Mixto Covid-19. En él se ofrecen algunas recomendaciones para el buen uso de los fondos europeos de recuperación que se activarán en los próximos meses. Los autores señalan que estos fondos pueden ser un estímulo importante para la reactivación de la economía tras el fin del confinamiento, pe...
La provisión de infraestructuras afecta de una manera muy directa a la calidad de vida
de los ciudadanos, consume recursos significativos y no depende exclusivamente de las
decisiones que tome el sector privado de la economía. Aunque en la mayoría de los
casos son empresas privadas las que construyen, mantienen y operan las redes de
transporte o la...
This paper addresses the issue of the treatment of foreigners and foreign-owned firms in the cost-benefit analysis of transport projects. The distinction between the indirect utility function of national and non-national allows the consideration of some relevant cases. These are: the common case of zero weights to foreign consumers, and foreign com...
The measurement of the economic effects of transport improvements is generally based on the rule of a half. Virtually all the projects have in common the reduction of the generalized cost of transport. The basic rule is derived from a simple indirect utility function, illustrating its use to measure changes in the main components of the generalized...
Pricing and investment decisions are not independent; causality in the relationship cuts both ways. Optimal prices, once the investment has been made and is irreversible, are quite different compared with the situation contemplated in the ex-ante evaluation of the project, when no cost is already sunk, and various capacity options are still open. T...
This paper discusses how to evaluate a large project when there is a substitute. The new large project causes discrete price adjustments in the substitute market. For example, a new high-speed rail may shift the demand curve for flight tickets to the left and reduce their price, in turn shifting the demand curve for train tickets to the left. There...
. Abstract This paper discusses how to evaluate a large project when there is a substitute. The new large project causes discrete price adjustments in the substitute market. For example, a new high-speed rail may shift the demand curve for flight tickets to the left and reduce their price, in turn shifting the demand curve for train tickets to the...
Los dos casos polares para la construcción, mantenimiento y operación de las infraestructuras son la provisión pública directa y la privatización. Ente ellos hay un menú de contratos de colaboración público-privada, entre los que el sistema concesional es el más atractivo cuando es preferible que el Estado mantenga la planificación de la red, cedie...
This paper revises some of the common views on transport infrastructure investment and proposes alternative ways to achieve a more efficient planning, evaluation and financing of transport infrastructures in a world where planners may pursue their own interests, there exist different levels of government, and budget constraints are pervasive. We fo...
This paper revises some of the common views on transport infrastructure investment and proposes alternative ways to achieve a more efficient planning, evaluation and financing of transport infrastructures in a world where planners may pursue their own interests, there exist different levels of government, and budget constraints are pervasive. We fo...
A government’s objective of providing an optimal set of
infrastructure requires, in the first instance, employing the
economic evaluation methodology to select the best projects.
Here, a government must maintain technological neutrality, in
the sense of making investment decisions based on technical
criteria that can be applied equally to all modes...
Principios económicos de la financiación de las infraestructuras
Competition between airports within a nation is not always feasible. Some airports are sheltered from other airports competition because catchment areas do not overlap due to geographical reasons or consumers' preferences. This is not necessarily serious if competition with non-national airports exists, or the existence of other goods strongly inte...
La política de infraestructuras necesita de la ingeniería, el derecho y
la economía. De estos tres ingredientes, el tercero ha estado particularmente escaso
en nuestro país. Los avances económicos en materia de información asimétrica,
diseño de mecanismos, teoría de la regulación o incluso el análisis coste-beneficio
básico, no parecen haber jugado...
This paper considers the existence of a given transport infrastructure and analyzes the optimal conditions for investing in a complementary or rival new infrastructure. The model allows us to identify some key variables to be considered in cost–benefit analysis and highlights the importance of socially optimal access pricing in relation to investme...
Infrastructure investment is an inter-temporal decision through which society foregoes its current wellbeing for the future. In the economic assessment of this trade-off, the practical standard method is cost-benefit analysis, which compares the social benefits and costs of the decision. Furthermore, a sound exercise of economic evaluation requires...
The paper presents the results of a research on railway regulation and liberalisation in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. The analysed fields of regulation are the relationship between the State and the rail companies, network access conditions by operators, slot allocating and pricing schemes and how public service obligations are defined, paid a...
The purpose of this book is to answer the normative question of whether investing in the construction of High Speed Rail (HSR) infrastructure in a standard medium-distance corridor, like the Stockholm-Gothenburg in Sweden, is socially desirable. We analyze the expected economic effects of the construction of a HSR infrastructure in an intercity cor...
Tras recopilar información sobre 166 proyectos de alta velocidad ferroviaria en todo el mundo, este documento de trabajo analiza algunas de las cuestiones empíricas más relevantes relacionadas con el desarrollo que ha tenido en los últimos años este nuevo modo de transporte. El estudio comienza discutiendo la definición económica de alta velocidad,...
This paper deals with public investment in High Speed Rail (HSR) infrastructure and tries to understand the economic rationale for allocating public money to the construction of new HSR lines. The exam of data on costs and demand shows that the case for investing in HSR requires several conditions to be met: an ex ante high volume of traffic in the...
We consider a principal-agent model in which the regulator faces a moral hazard problem as he cannot observe the effort exerted by public transit operators. In this context, we analyse the effectiveness of the different urban transport contracts signed by the Spanish Central Government since 1990 in terms of incentives. The main result is that none...
The future of interurban public transport will be significantly affected by public sector decisions concerning investment in infrastructure, particularly the construction of new high-speed rail lines in medium-distance corridors where cars, buses, airplanes and conventional trains are the competing modes of transport. The distribution of traffic be...
L’avenir du transport public interurbain sera profondément marqué par les décisions que les pouvoirs publics prendront en matière d’investissements en infrastructures et, en particulier, de construction de nouvelles lignes de chemin de fer à grande vitesse dans des corridors de moyenne longueur où la voiture, l’autocar, l’avion et le train classiqu...
Free download:
http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/Issues_of_the_Day.aspx
"What a great idea! Get 100 individuals, or teams, to produce brief, 2-page analyses of urgent policy issues--a non-technical encyclopedia of current issues in climate, energy, ecology, and related topics. My suggestion: read one each day, and think about it all day. I...
La répartition du trafic entre les différents modes de transport résulte des décisions prises par les usagers des transports, lesquelles dépendent du coût généralisé des déplacements que supposent les différentes solutions possibles. L’investissement dans le train à grande vitesse (TGV) est une décision qui relève des pouvoirs publics et produit de...
Las infraestructuras contribuyen al bienestar social cuando cumplen una condición muy simple: los beneficios sociales han de ser mayores que sus costes sociales. La sociedad suele contemplar las infraestructuras con un cierto sesgo consistente en la creencia de cuanta más, más grande y de nueva tecnología mejor. El concepto de coste de oportunidad...
Many countries are taking into consideration the construction of new high-speed rail lines. The European Commission explicitly deems the expansion of high- speed rail as a priority within the trans-European networks, allocating an important part of the community funds for its development with the declared aim of increasing the market share of rail...
Transport infrastructure contributes to social welfare when a basic condition is fulfilled: social benefits should exceed social costs. It has been common to see infrastructure with a biased perspective leading to the belief that the more, the bigger and the more advance technologically the better. The concept of opportunity cost of public money do...
After collecting information on 166 high-speed rail (HSR) projects across the world, this paper examines some of the most relevant empirical issues related to the implementation of this transport technology in recent years. We firstly discuss the economic definition of HSR, trying to identify its different development and operating models. Then, we...
Tras recopilar información sobre 166 proyectos de alta velocidad ferroviaria en todo el mundo, este documento de trabajo analiza algunas de las cuestiones empíricas más relevantes relacionadas con el desarrollo que ha tenido en los últimos años este nuevo modo de transporte. El estudio comienza discutiendo la definición económica de alta velocidad,...
Este documento de trabajo comienza analizando los principales costes y beneficios asociados a la inversión en los proyectos de alta velocidad ferroviaria. A continuación, se discuten algunos ejemplos extraídos de las actuales propuestas que están en estudio en el Reino Unido y de la línea Madrid-Sevilla. Finalmente, se presenta un modelo que permit...
The future of interurban public transport will be significantly affected by public sector decisions concerning investment in infrastructure, particularly the construction of new high-speed rail lines in medium-distance corridors where cars, buses, airplanes and conventional trains are the competing modes of transport. The distribution of traffic be...
Public infrastructure investment is usually co-financed by supranational organizations. The selection of projects is supposed to be decided using the information provided by conventional cost-benefit analysis. Nevertheless, we show that the type of institutional design regarding the financing mechanism affects the incentives of national governments...
The allocation of traffic between different transport modes follows transport user decisions which depend on the generalized cost of travel in the available alternatives. High Speed Rail (HSR) investment is a government decision with significant effects on the generalized cost of rail transport; and therefore on the modal split in corridors where p...
Aviation performance is an important cog in modern globalized economies, which demand flexibility, mobility, efficiency, and dependability. Airport delays have gone from being a nuisance to being a salient public concern, drawing the ire of even the White House. In this important book, international transportation experts compare and contrast how d...
High Speed Railways (HSR) is currently regarded as one of the most significant technological breakthroughs in passenger transportation developed in the second half of the 20th century. At the beginning of 2008 there were about 10,000 kilometres of new high speed lines in operation around the world and, in total (including upgraded conventional trac...
INTRODUCTION
By High Speed Rail (HSR) we normally mean rail technologies capable of speeds of the order of 300km ph on new dedicated track. Such systems offer journey times that are more competitive with other modes, and particularly air, than traditional train services, and very high capacity. But their capital cost is also high. The proposals of...
INTRODUCTION
By High Speed Rail (HSR) we normally mean rail technologies capable of speeds of the order of 300km ph on new dedicated track. Such systems offer journey times that are more competitive with other modes, and particularly air, than traditional train services, and very high capacity. But their capital cost is also high. The proposals of...
The development of High Speed Rail (HSR) in Europe has been encouraged, and financially supported, by the European Commission. HSR technology is presented as a solution to congested roads and airports and as an efficient response for incremental demand in the coming years. However, the case for an HSR investment project is highly dependent on the e...
This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection a...
Large infrastructure projects are high cost investments devoted to the construction and operation of long life, specific assets, characterized by demand uncertainty and irreversibility. Besides these technical characteristics, the usual institutional setting for the proposal, evaluation and selection of projects, is one of different agents in a con...
In order to know whether a particular High Speed Rail project is worthwhile, it is necessary to have an estimation of the initial investment and the flow of benefits and costs during the project life. An estimation of the benefits requires having a measure of the users diverted from other modes of transport and the number of users generated thanks...
In order to know whether a particular High Speed Rail project is worthwhile, it is necessary to have an estimation of the initial investment and the flow of benefits and costs during the project life. An estimation of the benefits requires having a measure of the users diverted from other modes of transport and the number of users generated thanks...
Large infrastructure projects are high cost investments devoted to the construction and operation of long life, specific assets, characterized by demand uncertainty and irreversibility. Besides these technical characteristics, the usual institutional setting for the proposal, evaluation and selection of projects, is one of different agents in a con...
Desde 1990 la Administración General del Estado ha venido financiando el transporte urbano y metropolitano a través de diversos Contratos-Programas y Convenios de Financiación de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los efectos que las distintas formas de financiación pública han tenido sobre los incentivos de las...
Las infraestructuras tienen características que complican su provisión directa en el mercado, haciendo necesaria una implicación directa del sector público en su construcción y funcionamiento, e indirecta, mediante contratos de participación público-privada. Su mitificación social ha favorecido una visión distorsionada según la cual, invertir en gr...
El presente Manual de Evaluación Económica de Proyectos de Transporte se ha elaborado a partir de un objetivo general y de nueve principios que se desprenden del análisis económico y de las lecciones aprendidas en la práctica del análisis coste-beneficio (ACB) por agencias nacionales y supranacionales. El objetivo general de este Manual es dotar al...
La inversión en infraestructura de alta velocidad ferroviaria es de alto coste y de naturaleza irreversible; sus beneficios están sujetos a incertidumbre y la construcción de la red puede realizarse gradualmente. En estas circunstancias, la evaluación económica ex ante es especialmente valiosa porque los proyectos pueden retrasarse. La inversión pú...
I am impressed by this book on railway competition... I have not previously seen such a comprehensive treatment of the problems of introducing competition on the railways. The editors have found good authors and provide an up-to-date mix of theory and practical examples from around the world. The book assumes little knowledge of economics and is su...
Este trabajo realiza una revisión crítica de los principios subyacentes a la política de transporte europea y estudia cómo se han aplicado dichos principios en los últimos años. El análisis se centra en tres ideas principales: la integración/desintegración vertical entre infraestructuras y servicios de transporte como mecanismo que favorece o dific...
We present a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) New Keynesian model with indivisible labor and a dual labor market: a Walrasian one where wages are fully flexible and a unionized one characterized by real wage rigidity. We show that the negative effect of a productivity shock on inflation and the positive effect of a cost-push shock are...
Infrastructure development is a priority on policy agendas in the EU and worldwide, because of the very high investment needs in basic infrastructure, especially in lagging behind regions and countries. The paper provides a descriptive analysis of the infrastructural gaps in EU transition economies at national and, as far as possible, regional leve...
The problem of airport congestion is treated in the literature analogously to road congestion. However, the phenomenon is different, because entry at airports is not random. Flight delays are a consequence of system overload, even though airport systems operate on carefully planned schedules. Besides uncontrolled for events (e.g. bad weather), airp...
This paper presents a cost–benefit analysis approach devised to conduct project evaluation in conditions of limited analyst time, research budget and data availability. The emphasis is on discarding economically viable from unviable projects rather than on arriving at a precise estimate of project return. The paper starts by setting out the theoret...
Road pricing has been defended by economists as a useful instrument to internalize the costs that road users impose upon other users and the rest of society, with the aim of allocating scarce space and to reduce congestion to an efficient level. More recently, private participation in the construction, maintenance and operation of road infrastructu...
Private participation in road projects is increasing around the world. The most popular form of franchising is a concession contract, which allows a private firm to charge tolls to road users during a pre-determined period in order to recover investments. Concessionaires are usually selected through auctions at which candidates submit bids for toll...
Contenido: Principios de la economía del transporte; La producción de actividades de transporte; Los costes del transporte; La demanda de transporte; Criterios de fijación de precios; La regulación económica del transporte; Inversión en infraestructuras de transporte; Externalidades en el transporte; Estructura de los mercados de transporte; Datos...
Airport congestion has been generally dealt in the literature in a similar fashion as road congestion. However, the phenomenon is quite different, because entry at airports is not random. Flight delays are a consequence of system overload, which is linked to profit maximization decisions of airports and airlines. Moreover, airport congestion exhibi...
Private sector participation in infrastructure projects traditionally financed by governments (roads, airports, seaports) is increasing around the world. This paper describes how a toll road concession works. It discusses how the usual mechanism, based on a concession contract with a pre-determined fixed term, and a selection process of concessiona...
"Hacer que el sector privado se convirtiese en un agente más activo has sido la parte más importante de la reforma del transporte. Conseguir que los gobiernos asuman de forma efectiva su nuevo papel como reguladores va a ser probablemente un reto más difícil. En muchos casos, la presencia de empresas dominantes no va a notarse únicamente en su capa...
Private sector participation in infrastructure projects traditionally financed by governments (roads, airports, seaports) is increasing around the world. This paper describes how a toll road concession works. It discusses how the usual mechanism, based on a concession contract with a pre-determined fixed term, and a selection process of concessiona...
