Congestion and consolidation: An empirical study of a barge shipping merger

Aaron Barkley and Kael Mcleod

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2022, vol. 93, issue C

Abstract: This paper uses consolidation in the barge shipping industry to investigate the efficiencies generated by mergers in congested transportation markets. We study a merger between two barge shipping companies operating on congested transportation routes in the US inland waterway system. Using geographic variation in how the merger impacts traffic volume concentration, we estimate the effects of increased concentration on delays at congested bottlenecks using a novel data set of over one million linked vessel-firm delay observations. The results indicate that the merger decreased delays by 7% on average, suggesting substantial efficiency gains due to increased concentration. These findings have implications for optimal congestion pricing, transportation infrastructure investment, and merger review.

Keywords: Congestion; Merger synergies; Transportation; Barge shipping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046221000855
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:regeco:v:93:y:2022:i:c:s0166046221000855

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2021.103725

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().