Railway (De)Regulation: A European Efficiency Comparison

Marc Ivaldi, Guido Friebel () and Catherine Vibes

No 4319, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Many European countries have sought to increase the efficiency of national railroad companies through a range of reforms: separating infrastructure and operations, creating independent regulatory institutions and providing access to the network to third parties. To estimate the effects of reforms on railroad efficiency, we investigate a new World Bank panel dataset that covers many EU countries over a period of 20 years. We compare the passenger traffic efficiency of national railroad companies by means of a production frontier model and evaluate the effects of reforms on efficiency. We find that reforms have efficiency-increasing effects but that the effect of reforms depends on sequencing: the introduction of multiple reforms in a package has at best neutral effects, but sequential reforms improve efficiency. Using the LISREL technique, we find that our results are robust against potential problems of endogeneity.

Keywords: L92; Production frontier; Network industries; Panel data analysis; Passenger and freight traffic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D24 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Railway (De)Regulation: A European Efficiency Comparison (2010)
Working Paper: Railway (De) Regulation: A European Efficiency Comparison (2007)
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