IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v135y2020icp1-23.html

Transport policy, rail freight sector and market structure: The economic effects in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Betarelli, Admir Antonio
  • Domingues, Edson Paulo
  • Hewings, Geoffrey John Dennis

Abstract

After fifteen years of railway concessions in Brazil, the rail freight sector became responsible for over 26% of the total transported volume in the country, an increase of 20% during this period. This Brazilian experience led a recovery in productivity and investment levels, with an improvement in service quality and modernization of the sector. Nevertheless, the rail price control mechanisms were almost unrestricted, allowing the concessionaires keep prices at very high levels. Just in 2012, it was held the first revision of price cap regulation of the sector. In this paper, we analyze the long-turn economic impacts of the rail freight sector tariff review policy in Brazil through the use of a dynamic general equilibrium model. The model incorporates some forms of market imperfections within its theoretical structure. Regardless the assumptions attributed to productive system, the main findings suggest that tariff policies promote positive effects on GDP growth, exports, and investments, as well as on other sectors, such as those most intensive in freight railways. However, the projections seem to confirm an onus on rail freight sector, with fall on its supply, return rate and private investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Betarelli, Admir Antonio & Domingues, Edson Paulo & Hewings, Geoffrey John Dennis, 2020. "Transport policy, rail freight sector and market structure: The economic effects in Brazil," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:135:y:2020:i:c:p:1-23
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2020.02.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856419307554
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2020.02.018?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Cory & Mark Horridge, 1985. "A Harris-style miniature version of ORANI," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers op-54, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    2. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), 2011. "A Handbook of Transport Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12679, March.
    3. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Rodrik, Dani, 1989. "Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries: Do Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 283-287, May.
    4. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    5. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Robert Vickerman, 2011. "Handbook Of Transport Economics," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754912, HAL.
    6. Kaludura Abayasiri-Silva & Mark Horridge, 1998. "Economies of Scale and Imperfect Competition in an Applied General Equilibrium Model of the Australian Economy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Kenneth J. Arrow & Yew-Kwang Ng & Xiaokai Yang (ed.), Increasing Returns and Economic Analysis, chapter 14, pages 307-334, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Francois, Joseph F., 1998. "Scale Economies And Imperfect Competition In The Gtap Model," Technical Papers 28718, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    8. Mark Horridge, 2000. "ORANI-G: A General Equilibrium Model of the Australian Economy," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers op-93, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    9. Harris, Richard, 1984. "Applied General Equilibrium Analysis of Small Open Economies with Scale Economies and Imperfect Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1016-1032, December.
    10. Spence, Michael, 1976. "Product Differentiation and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 407-414, May.
    11. Pedro Cavalcanti Ferreira & Samuel deAbreu Pessoa & Joao Victor Issler, 2000. "On the Nature of Income Inequality Across Nations," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1487, Econometric 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. Francisco Gildemir Ferreira da Silva & Renata Lúcia Magalhães de Oliveira & Marin Marinov, 2020. "An Analysis of the Effects on Rail Operational Efficiency Due to a Merger between Brazilian Rail Companies: The Case of RUMO-ALL," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-23, June.
    2. Cui, Qi & He, Ling & Liu, Yu & Zheng, Yanting & Wei, Wei & Yang, Bo & Zhou, Meifang, 2021. "The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on China’s transport sectors based on the CGE model coupled with a decomposition analysis approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 103-115.
    3. Betarelli Junior, Admir Antonio & Domingues, Edson & Faria, Weslem & Magalhães, Aline & Proque, Andressa, 2022. "Tax elimination on terminal handling charges of the sectoral importers: assessing the economic effects in Brazil," Conference papers 333481, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Betarelli Junior, Admir Antonio & Faria, Weslem Rodrigues & Gonçalves Montenegro, Rosa Livia & Bahia, Domitila Santos & Gonçalves, Eduardo, 2020. "Research and development, productive structure and economic effects: Assessing the role of public financing in Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 235-253.
    5. William Costa & Britaldo Soares-Filho & Rodrigo Nobrega, 2022. "Can the Brazilian National Logistics Plan Induce Port Competitiveness by Reshaping the Port Service Areas?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-18, November.
    6. Betarelli Junior, Admir Antonio & Faria, Weslem Rodrigues & Proque, Andressa Lemes & Perobelli, Fernando Salgueiro & de Almeida Vale, Vinicius, 2021. "COVID-19, public agglomerations and economic effects: Assessing the recovery time of passenger transport services in Brazil," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 254-272.
    7. Melo dos Santos, Marcos Eduardo & Nem Singh, Jewellord & Castro, Rui & Santos, Hugo & Costa, Hirdan Katarina de Medeiros & dos Santos, Edmilson Moutinho, 2024. "SWOT analysis of Brazilian energy policy: A comparative panel data analysis of the twenty largest economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    8. Elżbieta Szaruga & Elżbieta Załoga & Arkadiusz Drewnowski & Paulina Dąbrosz-Drewnowska, 2023. "Convergence of Energy Intensity of the Export of Goods by Rail Transport: Linkages with the Spatial Integration and Economic Condition of Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-24, April.

    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. Minor, Peter J., 2010. "Time as a Barrier to Trade: A GTAP Database of ad valorem Trade Time Costs," Conference papers 331960, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. Kaludura Abayasiri-Silva & Mark Horridge, 1998. "The Effects of Current Fiscal Restraint on the Australian Economy: an Applied General Equilibrium Analysis with Imperfect Competition," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers op-91, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    3. Thisse, Jacques-François & Proost, Stef, 2015. "Skilled Cities, Regional Disparities, and Efficient Transport: The state of the art and a research agenda," CEPR Discussion Papers 10790, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Michael Wegener, 2011. "Transport in Spatial Models of Economic Development," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Kaludura Abayasiri-Silva & Mark Horridge, 1998. "Economies of Scale and Imperfect Competition in an Applied General Equilibrium Model of the Australian Economy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Kenneth J. Arrow & Yew-Kwang Ng & Xiaokai Yang (ed.), Increasing Returns and Economic Analysis, chapter 14, pages 307-334, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Ioannis Charalampidis & Panagiotis Karkatsoulis & Pantelis Capros, 2019. "A Regional Economy-Energy-Transport Model of the EU for Assessing Decarbonization in Transport," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-27, August.
    7. Naranpanawa, Athula & Arora, Rashmi, 2014. "Does Trade Liberalization Promote Regional Disparities? Evidence from a Multiregional CGE Model of India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 339-349.
    8. Robson, Edward N. & Wijayaratna, Kasun P. & Dixit, Vinayak V., 2018. "A review of computable general equilibrium models for transport and their applications in appraisal," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 31-53.
    9. Sabine Mage-Bertomeu, 2006. "Les modèles d'équilibre général appliqués à la politique commerciale : développements récents," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 116(3), pages 357-381.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1696 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Elbehri, Aziz & Hertel, Thomas, 2006. "A Comparative Analysis of the EU-Morocco FTA vs. Multilateral Liberalization," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 21, pages 496-525.
    12. Hansen, Wiljar & Johansen, Bjørn Gjerde, 2017. "Regional repercussions of new transport infrastructure investments: An SCGE model analysis of wider economic impacts," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 38-49.
    13. Rothengatter, Werner, 2017. "Wider economic impacts of transport infrastructure investments: Relevant or negligible?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 124-133.
    14. repec:elg:eechap:14395_2 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:eti:rdpsjp:07010 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Stef Proost & Fay Dunkerley & Saskia Loo & Nicole Adler & Johannes Bröcker & Artem Korzhenevych, 2014. "Do the selected Trans European transport investments pass the cost benefit test?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 107-132, January.
    17. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2011. "Price Discrimination," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 22, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Proost, Stef & Van Dender, Kurt, 2012. "Energy and environment challenges in the transport sector," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 77-87.
    19. Pedro Albarran & Raquel Carrasco & Adelheid Holl, 2013. "Domestic transport infrastructure and firms’ export market participation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 879-898, May.
    20. Platz, Trine Tornøe & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2017. "The curse of the first-in–first-out queue discipline," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 165-176.
    21. Paul Chiambaretto & André De Palma & Stef Proost, 2013. "A normative analysis of transport policies in a footloose capital model with interregional and intraregional transportation costs," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 51(3), pages 811-831, December.
    22. Diana N. Elshahawany & Eduardo A. Haddd, Michael L. Lahr, 2015. "The Potential Economic Impacts of the Proposed Development Corridor in Egypt: An Interregional CGE Approach," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2015_42, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    23. Ling-Ling Xiao & Tian-Liang Liu & Hai-Jun Huang, 2021. "Tradable permit schemes for managing morning commute with carpool under parking space constraint," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1563-1586, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models
    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

    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:eee:transa:v:135:y:2020:i:c:p:1-23. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    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.