The Economics of Railroad “Captive Shipper” Legislation

Russell Pittman
Additional contact information
Russell Pittman: Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice

No 201001, EAG Discussions Papers from Department of Justice, Antitrust Division

Abstract: Recent rate increases by U.S. freight railroads have refocused attention on regulation, deregulation, and regulatory reforms in the railroad industry. Legislation introduced into Congress would render a variety of railroad behavior newly subject to the jurisdiction of the antitrust statutes, with potential enforcement by the Antitrust Division and the FTC and through lawsuits brought by state attorneys general or private parties. This paper considers the economic issues raised by legislation and the likely impacts on competition and welfare.

Keywords: freight railroads; captive shippers; antitrust; regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 K23 L41 L42 L43 L51 L92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind, nep-law and nep-reg
Note: Director of Economic Research, Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, and Visiting Professor, New Economic School, Moscow. The author thanks Ken Heyer, Donna Kooperstein, Henry Posner III, Oliver Richard, Carl Shapiro, and Lou Thompson for comments on an earlier draft. The Antitrust Division encourages independent research by its economists. The views expressed herein are entirely those of the author and are not purported to reflect those of the U.S. Department of Justice.
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.justice.gov/atr/public/eag/255003.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:doj:eagpap:201001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EAG Discussions Papers from Department of Justice, Antitrust Division Department of Justice Antitrust Division 450 Fifth Street NW Washington, DC 20530. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tung Vu ().