The Staggers Act and Firm Performance: Long-Run Evidence

Lee Pinkowitz () and Rohan Williamson
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Lee Pinkowitz: Georgetown University
Rohan Williamson: Georgetown University

Review of Industrial Organization, 2016, vol. 49, issue 2, No 3, 202 pages

Abstract: Abstract One of the primary purposes of the Staggers Act of 1980 was to increase the profitability of the railroad industry. The paper examines the industry’s financial performance from 1963 to 2013 and provides evidence that railroads outperformed most other industries from pre- to post-deregulation using accounting-based measures. However, using a market-based measure, the railroad industry underperforms two-thirds of industries. Additionally, the post-Staggers accounting performance improvements were not at the expense of firms from commodity groups that are reliant on rail transportation. Importantly, there exists considerable skewness and heterogeneity across measures, which affects the effectiveness of inferences that are based on the mean of the distribution to reflect economic reality.

Keywords: Deregulation and performance; Financial performance; Railroad industry performance; Staggers act (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1007/s11151-016-9522-3

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