IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/22552.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Efficiency among private railway companies in a weakly regulated system: the case of Britain's railways in 1893-1912

Author

Listed:
  • Mulatu, Abay
  • Crafts, Nicholas

Abstract

This paper uses a stochastic cost frontier model to investigate the efficiency of Britain’s private railways during the period 1893-1912. We find that there was substantial inefficiency in the industry with no sign of reduction over time. Our main conclusion is that principal agent problems were pervasive in railway management at this time. Our results suggest that private ownership per se is not sufficient to promote efficiency in the railway industry; it should be supported by competition for franchises and price-capping regulation as in the 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Mulatu, Abay & Crafts, Nicholas, 2005. "Efficiency among private railway companies in a weakly regulated system: the case of Britain's railways in 1893-1912," Economic History Working Papers 22552, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:22552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22552/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael G. Pollitt & Andrew S. J. Smith, 2002. "The restructuring and privatisation of British Rail: was it really that bad?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 23(4), pages 463-502, December.
    2. David Parker, 2004. "The UK's Privatisation Experiment: The Passage of Time Permits a Sober Assessment," CESifo Working Paper Series 1126, CESifo.
    3. Ehrlich, Isaac & Georges Gallais-Hamonno & Zhiqiang Liu & Randall Lutter, 1994. "Productivity Growth and Firm Ownership: An Analytical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 1006-1038, October.
    4. Nicholas Crafts, 2005. "Market potential in British regions, 1871-1931," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(9), pages 1159-1166.
    5. Oum, Tae H. & Tretheway, Michael W. & Waters, W. G., 1992. "Concepts, methods and purposes of productivity measurement in transportation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 493-505, November.
    6. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    7. Pitt, Mark M. & Lee, Lung-Fei, 1981. "The measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the Indonesian weaving industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-64, August.
    8. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C. & Mulatu, Abay, 2007. "Total factor productivity growth on Britain's railways, 1852-1912: A reappraisal of the evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 608-634, October.
    9. Kodde, David A & Palm, Franz C, 1986. "Wald Criteria for Jointly Testing Equality and Inequality Restriction s," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1243-1248, September.
    10. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1988. "Privatization: An Economic Analysis," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262720116, April.
    11. Kennedy, J. & Smith, A.S.J., 2003. "Assessing the efficient cost of sustaining Britain’s rail network: perspectives based on Zonal comparisons," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0317, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Battese, George E. & Coelli, Tim J. & Colby, T.C., 1989. "Estimation of Frontier Production Functions and the Efficiencies of Indian Farms Using Panel Data from ICRISAT's Village Level Studies," 1989 Conference (33rd), February 7-9, 1989, Christchurch, New Zealand 144383, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    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. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C. & Mulatu, Abay, 2007. "Total factor productivity growth on Britain's railways, 1852-1912: A reappraisal of the evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 608-634, October.
    2. G. Thomas Sav, 2012. "Cost Efficiencies and Rankings of Flagship Universities," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 3(4), pages 596-603, 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. Stuart Holder & Helen Smith, 2012. "Privatization: Could the Benefits Seen in Other Network Industries be Realized in Postal Industries?," Chapters, in: Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer (ed.), Multi-Modal Competition and the Future of Mail, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Nicholas Crafts & Timothy Leunig & Abay Mulatu, 2008. "Were British railway companies well managed in the early twentieth century?1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 61(4), pages 842-866, November.
    3. repec:lic:licosd:12302 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Álvaro Costa & Carlos Oliveira Cruz & Joaquim Miranda Sarmento & Vitor Faria Sousa, 2021. "Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Ownership Model (Public vs. Private) on the Efficiency of Urban Rail Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Okten, Cagla & Arin, K. Peren, 2006. "The Effects of Privatization on Efficiency: How Does Privatization Work?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1537-1556, September.
    6. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C. & Mulatu, Abay, 2007. "Total factor productivity growth on Britain's railways, 1852-1912: A reappraisal of the evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 608-634, October.
    7. Cristina Bernini & Andrea Guizzardi, 2010. "Internal and Locational Factors Affecting Hotel Industry Efficiency: Evidence from Italian Business Corporations," Tourism Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 883-913, December.
    8. Asaftei, Gabriel & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Mantescu, Dorin, 2008. "Ownership, business environment and productivity change," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 498-509, September.
    9. Belloumi, Mounir & Matoussi, Mohamed Salah, 2006. "A Stochastic Frontier Approach for Measuring Technical Efficiencies of Date Farms in Southern Tunisia," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-14, October.
    10. Bernini, Cristina & Cerqua, Augusto & Pellegrini, Guido, 2017. "Public subsidies, TFP and efficiency: A tale of complex relationships," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 751-767.
    11. Alberto Chong & Florencio de, 2003. "The Truth about Privatization in Latin America," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm436, Yale School of Management.
    12. Cabeza Garcia, Laura & Gomez Anson, Silvia, 2007. "The Spanish privatisation process: Implications on the performance of divested firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 390-409.
    13. Catherine Ris & Othman Joumady, 2005. "Diffusion du capital humain et efficience salariale. Une application sur données appariées employé-employeur," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 169(3), pages 127-137.
    14. Yin-Fang Zhang & David Parker & Colin Kirkpatrick, 2008. "Electricity sector reform in developing countries: an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization, competition and regulation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 159-178, April.
    15. Asaftei, Gabriel & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2010. "Market power, EU integration and privatization: The case of Romania," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 340-356, September.
    16. Meenakshi Parida & S. Madheswaran, 2021. "Effect of firm ownership on productivity: empirical evidence from the Indian mining industry," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 34(1), pages 87-103, April.
    17. Johan Willner, 2006. "A Mixed Oligopoly Where Private Firms Survive Welfare Maximisation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 235-251, December.
    18. Jiang, Kun & Wang, Susheng, 2017. "A contractual analysis of state versus private ownership," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 142-168.
    19. Alessandro Marra, 2006. "Mixed Public-Private Enterprises in Europe: Economic Theory and an Empirical Analysis of Italian Water Utilities," Bruges European Economic Research Papers 4, European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe.
    20. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    21. N.F. Cruz & R.C. Marques & A. Marra & C. Pozzi, 2014. "Local Mixed Companies: The Theory And Practice In An International Perspective," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 1-9, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation
    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    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:ehl:wpaper:22552. 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: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.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.