Separability and Subadditivity in Australian Railways

Nick Wills‐johnson

The Economic Record, 2008, vol. 84, issue 264, 95-108

Abstract: Economic reform in the mid‐1990s saw the application of third‐party access to railway infrastructure and, in some cases, the separation of above‐rail and below‐rail services into separate businesses. Reform was based on the notion that the rail track was a natural monopoly, while the above‐rail sector could potentially support competition. This paper examines the likelihood of such competition through an analysis of subadditivity, and also the consequences of vertical separation for rail efficiency. It finds limited evidence for sustainable above‐rail competition, but also limited evidence that vertical separation should have caused efficiency losses.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2008.00449.x

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:bla:ecorec:v:84:y:2008:i:264:p:95-108

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0013-0249

Access Statistics for this article

The Economic Record is currently edited by Paul Miller, Glenn Otto and Martin Richardson

More articles in The Economic Record from The Economic Society of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().