Hugo E. Silva

Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Department of Transport Engineering and Logistics · Economics Department
Principal Investigator, CATLEC and TJUSTO

Transport economics, Urban economics, Transport policy and regulation

About

Hugo E. Silva is an Associate Professor at the Department of Transport Engineering and Logistics and the Economics Department of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is a Principal Researcher at the Center for Advanced Transportation, Logistics, and Economic Competitiveness (CATLEC) and at the Millennium Nucleus in Just Transport.

He received a BSc in Civil Engineering (2010) and an MSc in Transportation Engineering (2010) from Universidad de Chile, and a PhD in Economics from VU Amsterdam in 2015.

He is also a cofounder of SimpliCity, a startup for data-based urban and territorial planning.

Hugo E. Silva es Profesor Asociado del Departamento de Ingeniería de Transporte y Logística y del Instituto de Economía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Investiga en economía del transporte y economía urbana: tarificación de la congestión, subsidios y diseño del transporte público, aeropuertos, y el efecto de la infraestructura de transporte sobre la ciudad. Es investigador principal del Centro Avanzado de Transporte, Logística y Competitividad Económica (CATLEC) y del Núcleo Milenio Transporte Justo (TJUSTO).

Working papers
  1. Property taxes as market signals: evidence from housing markets with information frictions with Joaquín Toledo. Revise and resubmit, Journal of Urban Economics SSRN
  2. The effects of transport infrastructure on housing and prices: the role of land-use regulation with Andrea Herrera and Kenzo Asahi. Revise and resubmit, Journal of Urban Economics SSRN
  3. The social divide of urban land use regulatory changes: evidence from Chile with Kenzo Asahi and Diego Gil. Revise and resubmit, Urban Studies
  5. Work from home, internal migration and the gender wage gap in Latin America with Matías Gutiérrez and Jeanne Lafortune. Submitted
  6. Regulating vertical markets through delegation with Andrea Canales and Nicolás Figueroa. Submitted
  9. Information frictions in rental voucher programs: experimental evidence from Chile with Pablo Celhay and Javiera Selman. Slides

Journal articles

  1. 2026
    Public transport subsidies and the marginal cost of public funds: an interpretative review with Raúl Ramos. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 206:104895.
  2. 2025
    JUE insight: efficiency of bus priority infrastructure with Felipe González. Journal of Urban Economics, 146:103751. Online appendix
  3. 2024
    Maximization of equilibrium utility vs minimization of resources in the urban equilibrium with Raúl Pezoa and Leonardo J. Basso. Economics Letters, 240:111772.
  4. 2023
    Fare evasion in public transport: how does it affect the optimal design and pricing? with Raúl Ramos. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 176:102803.
  5. 2022
    Team-based incentives in transportation firms: an experiment with Vicente Ramírez, Patricia Galilea and Joaquín Poblete. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 164:1–12.
  6. 2021
    Public transport and urban structure with Leonardo J. Basso and Matías Navarro. Economics of Transportation, 28:100232.
  7. The impact of fare-free public transport on travel behavior: evidence from a randomized controlled trial with Owen Bull and Juan Carlos Muñoz. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 86:103616.
  8. 2019
    The efficiency of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems: a dynamic congestion approach with Leonardo J. Basso and Fernando Feres. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 127:47–71.
  9. Equilibrium in a dynamic model of congestion with large and small users with Robin Lindsey and André de Palma. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 124:82–107.
  10. 2017
    Dynamic equilibrium at a congestible facility under market power with Erik T. Verhoef. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 105:174–192.
  11. On the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium in the bottleneck model with atomic users with Robin Lindsey, André de Palma and Vincent A.C. van den Berg. Transportation Science, 51(3):863–881.
  12. 2014
    Efficiency and substitutability of transit subsidies and other urban transport policies with Leonardo J. Basso. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(4):1–33.
  13. Airline route structure competition and network policy with Erik T. Verhoef and Vincent A.C. van den Berg. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 67:320–343.
  14. Airlines' strategic interactions and airport pricing in a dynamic bottleneck model of congestion with Erik T. Verhoef and Vincent A.C. van den Berg. Journal of Urban Economics, 80:13–27.
  15. 2013
    Optimal pricing of flights and passengers at congested airports and the efficiency of atomistic charges with Erik T. Verhoef. Journal of Public Economics, 106:1–13.

Book chapters

  1. 2023
    The economics of airports' pricing with Tiziana D'Alfonso, Martina Gregori and Leonardo J. Basso. In Handbook on Transport Pricing and Financing, 207–228. Edward Elgar. Publisher
  2. 2021
    The Mohring effect In International Encyclopedia of Transportation, 263–266, ed. Roger Vickerman. Elsevier. Publisher

Work in progress

Older papers

Projects that are no longer active.