IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/discus/71.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of competition on productive efficiency in European railways

Author

Listed:
  • Gertjan Driessen
  • Mark Lijesen
  • Machiel Mulder

Abstract

This paper empirically explores the relationship between competition design and productive efficiency in the railway industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to construct efficiency scores, and explain these scores, using variables reflecting institutional factors and competition design. Our results suggest that competitive tendering improves productive efficiency, which is in line with economic intuition as well as with expectations on the design of competition. We also find that free entry lowers productive efficiency. A possible explanation for this result is that free entry may disable railway operators to reap economies of density. Our final result is that more autonomy of management lowers productive efficiency. Most of the incumbent railway companies are state owned and do not face any competitive pressure. As a consequence, increased independence without sufficient competition and adequate regulation may deteriorate incentives for productive efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Gertjan Driessen & Mark Lijesen & Machiel Mulder, 2006. "The impact of competition on productive efficiency in European railways," CPB Discussion Paper 71, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:71
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/download/impact-competition-productive-efficiency-european-railways.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Disney & Jonathan Haskel & Ylva Heden, 2003. "Restructuring and productivity growth in uk manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 666-694, July.
    2. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Kiyoshi Nakamura, 2004. "The Japanese Experience with Railway Restructuring," NBER Chapters, in: Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region, pages 305-336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Pedro Cantos & José Pastor & Lorenzo Serrano, 1999. "Productivity, efficiency and technical change in the European railways: A non-parametric approach," Transportation, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 337-357, November.
    4. Cantos, Pedro & Maudos, Joaqui­n, 2001. "Regulation and efficiency: the case of European railways," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 459-472, June.
    5. De Fraja, Giovanni, 1991. "Efficiency and Privatisation in Imperfectly Competitive Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 311-321, March.
    6. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R, 1980. "The Relative Efficiency of Public and Private Firms in a Competitive Environment: The Case of Canadian Railroads," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 958-976, October.
    7. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & William Greene, 2005. "Efficiency Measurement in Network Industries: Application to the Swiss Railway Companies," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 69-90, July.
    8. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    9. Takatoshi Ito & Anne O. Krueger, 2004. "Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ito_04-1.
    10. Guido Friebel & Marc Ivaldi & Catherine Vibes, 2010. "Railway (De)Regulation: A European Efficiency Comparison," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(305), pages 77-91, January.
    11. Melville L. McMillan & Debasish Datta, 1998. "The Relative Efficiencies of Canadian Universities: A DEA Perspective," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(4), pages 485-511, December.
    12. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    13. Gathon, H. -J. & Pestieau, P., 1995. "Decomposing efficiency into its managerial and its regulatory components: The case of European railways," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 500-507, February.
    14. Ito, Takatoshi & Krueger, Anne O. (ed.), 2004. "Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226386799, September.
    15. Tim Coelli & Sergio Perelman, 2000. "Technical efficiency of European railways: a distance function approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(15), pages 1967-1976.
    16. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1982. "Selection and the Evolution of Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 649-670, May.
    17. Louis Thompson, 2003. "Changing railway structure and ownership: Is anything working?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 311-355.
    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. Bai, Xue-jie & Zeng, Jin & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2019. "Pre-evaluating efficiency gains from potential mergers and acquisitions based on the resampling DEA approach: Evidence from China's railway sector," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 46-56.
    2. Tomeš, Zdeněk, 2017. "Do European reforms increase modal shares of railways?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 143-151.
    3. Link, Heike, 2016. "A Two-Stage Efficiency Analysis of Rail Passenger Franchising in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 50(1), pages 76-92.
    4. Matthias Aistleitner & Christian Grimm & Jakob Kapeller, 2018. "Auftragsvergabe, Leistungsqualitaet und Kostenintensitaet im Schienenpersonenverkehr. Eine internationale Perspektive," ICAE Working Papers 86, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    5. 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.
    6. Viktoria Kocsis & Victoria Shestalova & Henry van der Wiel & Nick Zubanov & Ruslan Lukach & Bert Minne, 2009. "Relation entry, exit and productivity: an overview of recent theoretical and empirical literature," CPB Document 180.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Steffen Juranek, 2016. "Creating a National Champion: International Competition and Unbundling in Rail Transportation," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 50(1), pages 56-75, January.
    8. Abate, Megersa & Lijesen, Mark & Pels, Eric & Roelevelt, Adriaan, 2013. "The impact of reliability on the productivity of railroad companies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-49.
    9. Sabien Dobbelaere & Mark Vancauteren, 2014. "Market imperfections, skills and total factor productivity : Firm-level evidence on Belgium and the Netherlands," Working Paper Research 267, National Bank of Belgium.
    10. Finger, Matthias, 2014. "Governance of competition and performance in European railways: An analysis of five cases," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 278-288.
    11. Orea, Luis & Rodríguez-Álvarez, Ana & Kumbhakar, Subal, 2008. "Explaining Occupancy Rates in the European Railways: a Reduced-Form Approach," Efficiency Series Papers 2008/04, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    12. Rico Merkert & Andrew S.J. Smith & Chris A. Nash, 2009. "Benchmarking of train operating firms -- a transaction cost efficiency analysis," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 35-53, October.
    13. Carlos Gutiérrez-Hita & Aurora Ruiz-Rua, 2019. "Competition in the railway passenger market: The challenge of liberalization," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 20(2), pages 164-183, June.
    14. Stojadinović, Nikola & Bošković, Branislav & Trifunović, Dejan & Janković, Slađana, 2019. "Train path congestion management: Using hybrid auctions for decentralized railway capacity allocation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 123-139.
    15. Mette Asmild & Torben Holvad & Jens Hougaard & Dorte Kronborg, 2009. "Railway reforms: do they influence operating efficiency?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 617-638, September.
    16. Bougna, Emmanuel & Crozet, Yves, 2016. "Towards a liberalised European rail transport: Analysing and modelling the impact of competition on productive efficiency," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 358-367.
    17. Viktoria Kocsis & Victoria Shestalova & Henry van der Wiel & Nick Zubanov & Ruslan Lukach & Bert Minne, 2009. "Relation entry, exit and productivity: an overview of recent theoretical and empirical literature," CPB Document 180, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Suzanne Kok & Nicole Bosch & Anja Deelen & Rob Euwals, 2011. "Migrant Women on the Labour Market," CPB Discussion Paper 180.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Lerida-Navarro, Carlos & Nombela, Gustavo & Tranchez-Martin, Jose M., 2019. "European railways: Liberalization and productive efficiency," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 57-67.
    20. Bai, Xuejie & Jin, Zeng & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2021. "Performance evaluation of China's railway passenger transportation sector," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    21. Link, Heike, 2019. "The impact of including service quality into efficiency analysis: The case of franchising regional rail passenger serves in Germany," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 284-300.
    22. Gwilliam, Ken, 2008. "A review of issues in transit economics," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 4-22, January.

    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. Gertjan Driessen & Mark Lijesen & Machiel Mulder, 2006. "The impact of competition on productive efficiency in European railways," CPB Discussion Paper 71.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    2. Bai, Xue-jie & Zeng, Jin & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2019. "Pre-evaluating efficiency gains from potential mergers and acquisitions based on the resampling DEA approach: Evidence from China's railway sector," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 46-56.
    3. Bai, Xuejie & Jin, Zeng & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2021. "Performance evaluation of China's railway passenger transportation sector," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Jain, Priyanka & Cullinane, Sharon & Cullinane, Kevin, 2008. "The impact of governance development models on urban rail efficiency," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1238-1250, November.
    5. Wetzel, Heike & Growitsch, Christian, 2006. "Economies of Scope in European Railways: An Efficiency Analysis," IWH Discussion Papers 5/2006, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Mette Asmild & Torben Holvad & Jens Hougaard & Dorte Kronborg, 2009. "Railway reforms: do they influence operating efficiency?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 617-638, September.
    7. Finger, Matthias, 2014. "Governance of competition and performance in European railways: An analysis of five cases," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 278-288.
    8. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Shuji Uranishi, 2013. "Does vertical separation reduce cost? An empirical analysis of the rail industry in European and East Asian OECD Countries," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 31-59, January.
    9. Mallikarjun, Sreekanth & Lewis, Herbert F. & Sexton, Thomas R., 2014. "Operational performance of U.S. public rail transit and implications for public policy," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 74-88.
    10. Heike Wetzel, 2008. "Productivity Growth in European Railways: Technological Progress,Efficiency Change and Scale Effects," Working Paper Series in Economics 101, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    11. de Backer, Koen & Sleuwaegen, Leo, 2003. "Foreign ownership and productivity dynamics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 177-183, May.
    12. Andrea Boitani & Marcella Nicolini & Carlo Scarpa, 2013. "Do competition and ownership matter? Evidence from local public transport in Europe," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(11), pages 1419-1434, April.
    13. Bos, J.W.B. & van Santen, P.C. & Schilp, P., 2013. "The importance of reallocation for productivity growth: Evidence from European and US banking," Research Memorandum 056, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    14. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2009. "Products and Productivity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(4), pages 681-709, December.
    15. Alan Harding & Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal, 2004. "Survival and Success among African Manufacturing Firms," Development and Comp Systems 0409046, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. J. David Brown & John S. Earle, 2008. "Understanding the Contributions of Reallocation to Productivity Growth: Lessons from a Comparative Firm-Level Analysis," ESCIRRU Working Papers 9, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Koen de Backer, 2002. "Foreign ownership and productivity dynamics," Economics Working Papers 617, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    18. Beria, Paolo & Quinet, Emile & de Rus, Gines & Schulz, Carola, 2012. "A comparison of rail liberalisation levels across four European countries," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 110-120.
    19. Holvad, Torben, 2020. "Efficiency analyses for the railway sector: An overview of key issues," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. Aradhna Aggarwal & Takahiro Sato, 2015. "Identifying High Growth Firms in India: An Alternative Approach," Discussion Paper Series DP2015-14, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpb:discus:71. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpbgvnl.html .

    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.