Dr. Timothy D. HAU
Economics

Honorary Associate Professor
timhau@hku.hk


Biography
Dr. Timothy D. HAU obtained his B.A. from Stanford University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.? Timothy taught at the University of California at Davis before joining The University of Hong Kong.? He was an economist at the World Bank and participated in several missions to China, Korea, India and Chile.? His World Bank papers on the theory and mechanisms of road use charging have been widely circulated and cited in both the academic and professional literature.? Timothy argues that road pricing – in one stroke – saves much wasted travel time and fuel, raises government revenues, as well as improves the environment.? Without the differential pricing of road use by time-of-day, road capacity enhancements are self-defeating due to the fundamental law of traffic congestion.
Timothy’s research interest is in internalizing congestion externalities and developing sustainable transportation.? His single-authored papers have appeared in journals such as Economica, Economics Letters, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Built Environment, Transportation Research and Transportmetrica.? As of April 11, 2017, there are altogether 977 citations of his papers listed in Google Scholar Citations. 923 cites, forming the bulk, are based on his single-authored works, whereas 54 citations are credited to joint papers with his coauthors.
As a transportation expert, Timothy was invited to deliver keynote speeches in international conferences held both locally and overseas.? Timothy was invited by the World Bank in the nineties to work as an economist in its Transport Division, Infrastructure and Urban Development Department.?? Subsequently he moved to the Public Economics Division of the World Bank’s Policy Research Department.? Altogether he spent four years working as a World Bank Official in Washington D.C. before returning to teach and research at HKU.? Timothy has served as an occasional reviewer of manuscripts for the Journal of Economic Literature, Economica, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Journal of Public Economics, Hong Kong Economic Papers, The World Bank Economic Review, Canadian Journal of Economics, EASTS Journal, Transportation, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Networks and Spatial Economics, and of grant applications for Hong Kong Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee, National Science Foundation of China and Research Grants Council.? He was Editorial Advisory Board Member for ITS Journalfrom 1993 to 2001 and also International Editorial Board Member of Transport Policy from 1993 to 2005.? He is an Editorial Board Member of Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, 2012 to present.? He provided policy advice to the Asian Development Bank, United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, National Research Council of the U.S. Academy of Sciences as well as the Central Policy Unit, the Environment, Transport and Works Branch, Transport Department and the Council for Sustainable Development of the HKSAR Government.
Timothy served as Founding Academic Director of the Asia Institute for Political Economy summer academic program from 2002 to 2005. ?He also helped found the Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies in 1996, where he is actively serving as a Board Member. ??He was a Member of the Expert Panel on Sustainable Transport Planning and Central-Wan Chai Bypass for the Harbour-front Enhancement Committee, HKSAR Government in 2005.? He continues to serve on over a dozen committees at the University, Faculty and School level.? Inter alia, he serves on the Board of Academic Awards, Faculty Scholarship Committee, Faculty Review Committee as well as being the Instructor-in-Charge of Teaching Assistant Appointments and Supervision. He continues to serve on professional bodies in the campus community.
Selected Publications
“An Estimation Of Efficient Time-varying Tolls For Cross Harbor Tunnels In Hong Kong,”
(with Becky PY Loo, KI Wong, SC Wong), The Singapore Economic Review, Vol. 56, No. 4, December 2011, pp. 467-488.
“Choice or Rank Data in Stated Preference Surveys?,”
(with Becky PY Loo, SC Wong), Open Transportation Journal, Vol. 2, August 2008, pp. 74-79.
“Schedule Delay of Work Trips in Hong Kong: Some Nested Logit Modeling Results,”
(with JLM Li, BPY Loo, SC Wong), The 83rd Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International, Honolulu, USA, June 2008, pp. 1-16.
“Preliminary findings on empirical analysis of work trip scheduling in Hong Kong,”
(with LMJ Li, SC Wong, BPY Loo), Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies, December 2007, pp. 69-77.
“Existence and uniqueness of a solution for the multi-class user equilibrium problem in a continuum transportation system,”
(with HW Ho, SC Wong), Transportmetrica, Vol. 3, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 107-117.
“Theoretical Bounds of Congestion-Pricing Efficiency for a Continuum Transportation System,”
(with HW Ho, SC Wong), in Richard E. Allsop, Michael G.H. Bell and Benjamin G. Heydecker (eds.), Transportation and Traffic Theory 2007, Papers Selected for Presentation at ISTTT17, 2007, pp. 263-280.
“A multi-class congestion-pricing problem in a continuum transportation system,”
(with HW Ho, SC Wong), Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 7, 2007, pp. 238-253.
“Introducing alternative fuel vehicles in Hong Kong: views from the public light bus industry,”
(with Becky PY Loo, SC Wong), Transportation, Vol. 33, Issue 6, November 2006, pp. 605-619.
“Congestion charging mechanisms for roads, Part II – Case studies,”
Transportmetrica, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2006, pp. 117-152.
“Congestion charging mechanisms for roads, Part I – Conceptual framework,”
Transportmetrica, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2006, pp. 87-116.
“Economic fundamentals of road pricing: a diagrammatic analysis, Part II – Relaxation of Assumptions,”
Transportmetrica, Vol. 1, Issue 2, March 2005, pp. 119-150.
“Economic fundamentals of road pricing: a diagrammatic analysis, Part I – Fundamentals,”
Transportmetrica, Vol. 1, Issue 2, March 2005, pp. 81-117.
“Optimal integrated pricing in a bi-modal transportation network,”
(with H Yang, Q Meng), in Der-Horng Lee, Urban and Regional Transportation Modeling. Essays in Honor of David Boyce, Edward Elgar Publishing, Incorporated, 2004, pp. 134-156.
“Demand-side Measures and Road Pricing,”
in Anthony G.O. Yeh, Peter R. Hills and Simon K.W. Ng (eds.) Modern Transport in Hong Kong for the 21st Century, The Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Hong Kong, 2001, pp. 127-162.
“Scheduling Delay Considerations in Urban Transportation Economics,”
(with PCW Chan), Transportation science and technology in the 21st century: proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies, 2000, pp. 255-264.
“Congestion Pricing and Road Investment,”
in Kenneth J. Button and Erik T. Verhoef (eds.) Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment: Issues in Efficiency and Social Feasibility, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, England, 1998, pp. 39-78.
“Transportation demand management in Hong Kong,”
in Stubbs J. and Clarke G. (eds.), Megacity Management in the Asian and Pacific Region: Policy Issues and Innovative Approaches, Manila, Philippines: The Asian Development Bank and the United Nations/World Bank Urban Management Programme for Asia and the Pacific, Vol. 1, 1996, pp. 387-408.
“How Effective are Fiscal Measures in Controlling Vehicle Numbers? Some Empirical Findings,”
Conference Proceedings of the 1st Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies, 1996, pp. 284-315.
“Instruments for Charging Congestion Externalities,”
in B?rje Johansson, Lars-G?ran Mattsson (eds.), Road Pricing: Theory, Empirical Assessment and Policy, Chapter 12, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, pp. 223-234.
“A Conceptual Framework for Pricing Congestion and Road Damage,”
in B?rje Johansson, Lars-G?ran Mattsson (eds.), Road Pricing: Theory, Empirical Assessment and Policy, Chapter 3, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, pp. 57-63.
“Estimation of marginal congestion costs, congestion tolls and revenues for urban road use in Indonesia,”
International Conference on Advanced Technologies in Transportation and Traffic Management, 1994, Singapore, 1994, pp. 77-88.
“Road pricing in Hong Kong: A viable proposal,”
Built Environment, Vol. 15, Issue 3/4, 1989, pp. 195-214.
“Electronic Road Pricing: Developments in Hong Kong 1983-89,”
Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Vol. 24, No. 2, May 1990, pp. 203-214.
“Using a Hicksian approach to cost-benefit analysis in discrete choice: An empirical analysis of a transportation corridor simulation model,”
Transportation Research B, Vol. 21B, No. 5, October 1987, pp. 339-357.
“Distributional Cost-Benefit Analysis in Discrete Choice,”
Journal of transport economics and policy, Vol. 20, No.3, September 1986, pp. 313-338.
“A Hicksian approach to cost-benefit analysis with discrete-choice models,”
Economica, Vol. 52, No. 208, November 1985, pp. 479-490.
“Some Hicksian and Marshallian consumer’s surplus estimates in discrete choice,”
Economics Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 3, December 1983, pp. 203-210.