IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v75y2009i4p1220-1237.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stuck in the Slow Lane: Undoing Traffic Composition Biases in the Measurement of Trucking Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth D. Boyer
  • Stephen V. Burks

Abstract

It is easy to confuse true productivity advances in transportation industries with changes in ton‐miles per unit of input that are the result of changes in the composition of traffic, as initially happened with the mid‐20th century U.S. railroads. Transportation productivity varies enormously by traffic type, for example, with long‐haul versus short‐haul traffic. Measurements of changes in physical productivity can easily be biased by modest changes in the traffic mix. We control for endogenous changes in the composition of truck traffic and find that trucking has in fact lagged the U.S. economy as a whole in productivity growth over the period of our data, 1982‐1997. Loosening of weight, length, and speed limits is the likely explanation for the growth we do observe. Improvements in information technology have brought real improvements in the quality of trucking services (in reliability, predictability, speed, order tracking, etc.), but as in other service industries, true physical productivity improvements in trucking are limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth D. Boyer & Stephen V. Burks, 2009. "Stuck in the Slow Lane: Undoing Traffic Composition Biases in the Measurement of Trucking Productivity," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(4), pages 1220-1237, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:75:y:2009:i:4:p:1220-1237
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2009.tb00955.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2009.tb00955.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2009.tb00955.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baumol, William J, 1972. "Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 150-150, March.
    2. John G. Fernald, 1999. "Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 619-638, June.
    3. Dale L. Belman & Kristen A. Monaco, 2001. "The Effects of Deregulation, De-Unionization, Technology, and Human Capital on the Work and Work Lives of Truck Drivers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2A), pages 502-524, March.
    4. Nancy L. Rose, 1985. "The Incidence of Regulatory Rents in the Motor Carrier Industry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 299-318, Autumn.
    5. John E. DiNardo & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1997. "The Returns to Computer Use Revisited: Have Pencils Changed the Wage Structure Too?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 291-303.
    6. Monaco, Kristen A. & Brooks, Taggert J., 2001. "Deregulation and wages in trucking: A time series phenomenon -- A time series approach," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 55-69, January.
    7. Thomas N. Hubbard, 2003. "Information, Decisions, and Productivity: On-Board Computers and Capacity Utilization in Trucking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1328-1353, September.
    8. Burks, Stephen V. & Monaco, Kristen & Myers-Kuykindall, Josephine, 2004. "Industry Issue Paper: The Balance Between Private and For-Hire Carriage and Trends in the Use of Large Trucks (1977 to 1997)," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 43(2).
    9. Ellig, Jerry, 2002. "Railroad Deregulation and Consumer Welfare," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 143-167, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boyer, Kenneth D. & Burks, Stephen V., 2007. "Stuck in the Slow Lane: Traffic Composition and the Measurement of Labor Productivity in the U.S. Trucking Industry," IZA Discussion Papers 2576, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Timothy Bresnahan & Pai-Ling Yin, 2017. "Adoption of New Information and Communications Technologies in the Workplace Today," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 95-124.
    3. Ark, Bart van, 2004. "Productivity and employment growth: an empirical review of long and medium run evidence : background working paper for the world employment report 2004," GGDC Research Memorandum 200471, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    4. Natália Monteiro, 2009. "Regulatory reform and labour earnings in Portuguese banking," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 557-574, June.
    5. Timothy De Stefano & Richard Kneller & Jonathan Timmis, 2014. "The (Fuzzy) Digital Divide: The Effect of Broadband Internet Use on UK Firm Performance," Discussion Papers 14/06, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    6. Burks, Stephen V. & Monaco, Kristen & Myers-Kuykindall, Josephine, 2004. "Industry Issue Paper: Trends in the Use of Large Trucks by Truckload and Less-Than-Truckload Motor Carriers in the 1990s," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 43(2).
    7. Natália Pimenta Monteiro, 2004. "Regulatory reform and the Portuguese banking labour market: two decades later," NIPE Working Papers 10/2004, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    8. repec:dgr:rugggd:200471 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Alberto Chong & Virgilio Galdo & Máximo Torero, 2005. "Does Privatization Deliver? Access to Telephone Services and Household Income in Poor Rural Areas Using a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Peru," Research Department Publications 4417, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    10. Feng, Qu & Wu, Guiying Laura, 2018. "On the reverse causality between output and infrastructure: The case of China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 97-104.
    11. Raffaello Bronzini & Paolo Piselli, 2006. "Determinants of long-run regional productivity: the role of R&D, human capital and public infrastructure," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 597, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Zhenhua Chen & Kingsley Haynes, 2015. "Multilevel assessment of public transportation infrastructure: a spatial econometric computable general equilibrium approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(3), pages 663-685, May.
    13. Wang, Xu & Zhang, Xiaobo & Xie, Zhuan & Huang, Yiping, 2016. "Roads to innovation: Firm-level evidence from China:," IFPRI discussion papers 1542, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Julián Messina, 2005. "Institutions and Service Employment: A Panel Study for OECD Countries," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(2), pages 343-372, June.
    15. Kim, Hyungtai & Ahn, Sanghoon & Ulfarsson, Gudmundur F., 2021. "Impacts of transportation and industrial complexes on establishment-level productivity growth in Korea," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 89-97.
    16. Volker Grossmann, 2005. "White-collar employment, inequality, and technological change," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 119-142, December.
    17. Josef Falkinger & Volker Grossmann, 2003. "Workplaces in the Primary Economy and Wage Pressure in the Secondary Labor Market," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 159(3), pages 523-544, September.
    18. Carlos Medina & Christian Posso, 2010. "Technical Change and Polarization of the Labor Market: Evidence for Brazil, Colombia and Mexico," Borradores de Economia 614, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    19. Burks, Stephen V & Guy, Frederick & Maxwell, Benjamin, 2004. "7. Shifting Gears In The Corner Office: Deregulation And The Earnings Of Trucking Executives," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 137-164, January.
    20. Hoffman, Mitchell & Burks, Stephen V., 2017. "Worker Overconfidence: Field Evidence and Implications for Employee Turnover and Returns from Training," IZA Discussion Papers 10794, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Leora Friedberg, 2003. "The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 511-529, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:75:y:2009:i:4:p:1220-1237. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.