The Research Of Regulation Of Toll-road Based On Institutional Economics

Toll-road is one of the important transport infrastructures. With its expanding scale ofmarketization and deepening of market-oriented, generating a lot of issues affecting theefficiency and performance of this industry, because the original property rights, competitionand regulatory system of toll-road is not adaptive intensifies, so its regulation has receivedincreasing attention of the government. On the basis of previous research, this paper beginsfrom the lack of previous studies, looking for a new regulatory reform idea to solve the defectof original idea of regulation from the perspective of institutional economics. Its significancelies in that it can accomplish something new of the toll-road industry regulation in the aspectof institutional reform, amend the defect of original idea of marketization and regulatoryreform, and resolve the problem of regulatory reform from the root for the relevantdepartments.Innovative point of this paper is the first one-attempt to use the perspective ofinstitutional economics, preliminarily explore the basic theory of regulatory reform oftoll-road industry. This paper will try to use the relevant theory of institutional economics,with the methods of literature research and combination of normal analysis and positiveanalysis, searching for the idea of the regulatory reform.This paper uses the core theory of institutional economics，property-rights, transactioncost，institutional change，making the role of institution endogenous. Firstly, from theperspective of property-rights, competition and regulation, focusing on nationalization andprivatization, analyze the source of efficiency of toll-road as well as problems. Studiessuggest that both property-rights and competition have implication on the efficiency oftoll-road, regulation is also the important factor affecting that property-rights and competitionimprove efficiency. Secondly, analyze the transaction cost of nationalization andmarketization supply of toll-road and regulation. Studies suggest that the presence oftransaction costs will affect the decision of the government and market/enterprise, there areboundaries of supply between the government and market, and also confirm that the idea of a fully market-oriented regulation is not feasible now. Thirdly, from the perspective ofinstitutional change, this paper analyzes the process of institutional change of the institutionof toll-road, as well as its performance and path. Studies suggest that the performance ofcurrent institutional arrangements is relative poor, it cannot meet the demands of thedevelopment of toll-road, both of them are caused by sectional interests. From the perspectiveof local government and highway enterprise, this paper confirmed the existence of sectionalinterests, and then analyzed the reason of institution and proposed views of reform.lastly，through the summary of all-above and further analysis, studies suggest that theregulatory system of toll-road is uncoordinated caused by sectional interests, and put forwardthe gradual reform path of parallel adaption of institutional arrangements of toll-road as thefinal idea of reform.