MAE101 - Economic Principles - Economics Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Description 
This assignment requires you to interpret economic data, explain how it informs our understanding and relate the tools of economics to the real-world issue of congestion in major cities. You are required to approach the assignment from the perspective of a policymaker who has been requested to provide advice to government. The assignment will be marked out of 50 marks and this will be converted to a mark out of 30 towards your final grade for the unit. 

Question 1 
The Table below from Litman (2019) reports estimates of various long run elasticities related to transport. With reference to the table (using the “best guess” values in parentheses), and relating to the theory you have learnt, answer the following: 
a) Explain the estimated relationship between the price of fuel and vehicle ownership.

b) Explain how an increase in income is likely to impact demand for car travel?

c) Explain the estimated relationship between population density and car travel demand including what factors you assume would influence this relationship?
 

Question 2 
In Chapter 4: (Better functioning towns and cities) of The Productivity Commission Report (2017) “Shifting the Dial: 5-year productivity review” the Commission suggests that “without policy change, the avoidable social costs of congestion are expected to rise to at least $31.4 billion by 2030.” (Productivity Commission Ch 4. p. 11) In fact, cities such as London and Singapore have had congestion taxes for a number of years. Congestion pricing, where road tolls are higher during peak period compared with off-peak are aimed at reducing traffic in peak hours. 
a) Explain and illustrate the difference in consumption patterns between off-peak road travel and peak road travel using demand curves. 
b) Explain, with the aid of a diagram, the market failure that a congestion tax is addressing and how the tax may improve social welfare. (Hint: Assume the tax increases the marginal cost per kilometre travelled). 
c) Marion Terrill (2019), an economist from the Grattan Institute, outlines her support for a congestion tax. With reference also to the elasticities in Question 1, discuss the possible equity implications of a congestion tax. 
d) Both the Productivity Commission and the Grattan Institute reports were published prior to the global pandemic Covid 19. How may this have changed this policy stance? 

Question 3 
Another alternative to addressing congestion in cities is to increase the incentives for the use of electric bikes or e-bikes. In some European capitals such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen almost a third of movement is on bikes (Kennedy 2019). 
a) What economic tools, other than a congestion tax, could the government use to provide incentives to increase the use of electric bikes? 
b) Kennedy (2019) suggests that regulation in Australia with respect to e-bikes has trailed behind technology. What regulation do you think is needed and are there potential unintended consequences from regulation?

This MAE101 - Economics Assignment has been solved by our Economics experts at My Uni Paper. Our Assignment Writing Experts are efficient to provide a fresh solution to this question. We are serving more than 10000+ Students in Australia, UK & US by helping them to score HD in their academics. Our Experts are well trained to follow all marking rubrics & referencing style.
Be it a used or new solution, the quality of the work submitted by our assignment experts remains unhampered. You may continue to expect the same or even better quality with the used and new assignment solution files respectively. There’s one thing to be noticed that you could choose one between the two and acquire an HD either way. You could choose a new assignment solution file to get yourself an exclusive, plagiarism (with free Turnitin file), expert quality assignment or order an old solution file that was considered worthy of the highest distinction.