IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ndtr10/207269.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rail Competition Changes Since the Staggers Act

Author

Listed:
  • Prater, Marvin
  • Casavant, Ken
  • Jessup, Eric
  • Blanton, Bruce
  • Bahizi, Pierre
  • Niberger, Daniel
  • Weingram, Isaac

Abstract

Agricultural and other shippers are concerned about the sufficiency in rural areas of transportation capacity, the sufficiency of competition in the transportation system, the reliability of transportation services, and the reasonableness of rates. This paper explores these questions with regard to the sufficiency of rail freight competition. The paper begins with a discussion of the importance of rail transportation for U.S. agricultural producers. Specific attention is paid to the nature of competition faced by railroads, especially since deregulation, using the analytical tool of inverse Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices (HHI) by USDA Crop Reporting Districts (CRD). As shown by the inverse HHIs, the overall level of rail competition has generally decreased since the 1985-1992 period, even though rail competition has increased for some CRDs. In addition, revenue to variable cost ratios (R/VC) increased in most of the CRDs analyzed and were related to the number of railroads competing in the CRD. Competition is then analyzed relative to the revenue per ton as well as the revenue to variable cost ratios (R/VC) associated with the level of competition for six States with the least rail-to-rail competition, and also distant from water transportation with those for four States having more rail-to-rail competition and close proximity to water transportation.

Suggested Citation

  • Prater, Marvin & Casavant, Ken & Jessup, Eric & Blanton, Bruce & Bahizi, Pierre & Niberger, Daniel & Weingram, Isaac, 2010. "Rail Competition Changes Since the Staggers Act," 51st Annual Transportation Research Forum, Arlington, Virginia, March 11-13, 2010 207269, Transportation Research Forum.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ndtr10:207269
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.207269
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/207269/files/2010_148_Rail_Changes_Staggers_Act.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.207269?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. MacDonald, James M., 1989. "Effects of railroad deregulation on grain transportation," Technical Bulletins 312302, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Lewis, William W., 2004. "The Power of Productivity," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226476766.
    3. MacDonald, James M, 1989. "Railroad Deregulation, Innovation, and Competition: Effects of the Staggers Act on Grain Transportation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 63-95, April.
    4. James M. MacDonald, 1987. "Competition and Rail Rates for the Shipment of Corn, Soybeans, and Wheat," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(1), pages 151-163, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Musa Abdu & Adamu Jibir, 2019. "Sources of Market Power among Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do Institutions Matter in Competitive Policies?," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 115-148, July-Dec.
    2. Ndembe, Elvis & Bitzan, John D., 2022. "A shadow price approach examining service quality in a heavily captive U.S. freight transportation market: The case of grain transport," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Ndembe, Elvis & Bitzan, John, 2018. "Grain freight elevator consolidation, transportation demand, and the growth of shuttle facilities," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 54-60.
    4. Lee Pinkowitz & Rohan Williamson, 2016. "The Staggers Act and Firm Performance: Long-Run Evidence," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(2), pages 161-202, September.

    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. James MacDonald, 2013. "Railroads and Price Discrimination: The Roles of Competition, Information, and Regulation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 43(1), pages 85-101, August.
    2. Hughes, Jonathan E., 2011. "The higher price of cleaner fuels: Market power in the rail transport of fuel ethanol," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 123-139, September.
    3. Schmidt, Stephen, 2001. "Market structure and market outcomes in deregulated rail freight markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 99-131, January.
    4. José A. Gómez-Ibáñez, 2016. "Open Access to Infrastructure Networks: The Experience of Railroads," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(2), pages 311-345, September.
    5. James Gaisford & Stefan Lutz, 2007. "A Multi-Product Framework Generating Waves of Mergers and Divestitures," ICER Working Papers 36-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    6. Lee Pinkowitz & Rohan Williamson, 2016. "The Staggers Act and Firm Performance: Long-Run Evidence," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(2), pages 161-202, September.
    7. Wesley W. Wilson & Frank A. Wolak, 2018. "Benchmark Regulation of Multiproduct Firms: An Application to the Rail Industry," NBER Working Papers 25268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Joon Je Park & Michael W. Babcock & Kenneth Lemke & Dennis L. Weisman, 2001. "Simulating the Effects of Railroad Mergers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 938-953, April.
    9. McMullen, B. Starr, 1991. "Determinants of Transportation Rates for Pacific Northwest Wheat Shippers," Transportation Research Forum Proceedings 1990s 319084, Transportation Research Forum.
    10. Wilson, Wesley W. & Wilson, William W., 2001. "Deregulation, rate incentives, and efficiency in the railroad market," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 1-24, January.
    11. Pittman, Russell, 2007. "Options for Restructuring the State-Owned Monopoly Railway," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 179-198, January.
    12. Cui, Shana & Pittman, Russell & Zhao, Jian, 2018. "Restructuring the Chinese Freight Railway: Two Scenarios," MPRA Paper 88407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. John Bitzan & Wesley Wilson, 2007. "Industry costs and consolidation: efficiency gains and mergers in the U.S. railroad industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 30(2), pages 81-105, March.
    14. Guido Friebel & Sergei Guriev & Russell Pittman & Elizaveta Shevyakhova & Anna Tomová, 2006. "Railroad Restructuring in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe: One Solution for All Problems?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 251-271, August.
    15. Bitzan, John & Vachal, Kimberly & VanWechel, Tamara & Vinje, Dan, 2003. "The Differential Effects of Rail Rate Deregulation U.S. Corn, Wheat and Soybean Markets," MPC Reports 231695, North Dakota State University, Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute.
    16. John W. Mayo & David E. M. Sappington, 2016. "Regulation in a ‘Deregulated’ Industry: Railroads in the Post-Staggers Era," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(2), pages 203-227, September.
    17. Lawrence J. White, 1990. "Problems Of The Fslic: A Former Policy Maker'S View," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(2), pages 62-81, April.
    18. Miller, Keaton & Wilson, Wesley W., 2023. "Changes in rail rates for U.S. commodity grain shipments over time," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    19. Jonathan E. Hughes & Ian Lange, 2020. "Who (Else) Benefits From Electricity Deregulation? Coal Prices, Natural Gas, And Price Discrimination," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1053-1075, July.
    20. Alexei Alexandrov & Russell Pittman & Olga Ukhaneva, 2018. "Pricing of Complements in the U.S. Freight Railroads: Cournot Versus Coase," EAG Discussions Papers 201801, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.

    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:ags:ndtr10:207269. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.trforum.org/journal/ .

    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.