IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v35y2001i5p459-472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regulation and efficiency: the case of European railways

Author

Listed:
  • Cantos, Pedro
  • Maudos, Joaqui­n

Abstract

During the long period of regulation of the railway system in Europe (1950s-1990s) the companies notably improved their levels of productivity. However, parallel to this, the state of their financial accounts also significantly worsened. In order to explain this fact we have estimated both cost and revenue frontier functions, calculating the losses associated with both cost and revenue inefficiencies as well as inefficiencies on the cost side. The results obtained show the existence of significant potential losses of revenue, which can be explained above all by the strong policy of regulation and intervention reigning in this period. A better commercial policy and a supply adapted to market conditions seem to be two unavoidable requisites for the future of European rail policy if the companies' financial burdens are to be reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:35:y:2001:i:5:p:459-472
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965-8564(00)00007-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pulley, Lawrence B & Braunstein, Yale M, 1992. "A Composite Cost Function for Multiproduct Firms with an Application to Economies of Scope in Banking," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(2), pages 221-230, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Fare,Rolf & Grosskopf,Shawna & Lovell,C. A. Knox, 2008. "Production Frontiers," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521072069.
    4. Rogers, Kevin E., 1998. "Nontraditional activities and the efficiency of US commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 467-482, May.
    5. Berger, Allen N. & Mester, Loretta J., 1997. "Inside the black box: What explains differences in the efficiencies of financial institutions?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(7), pages 895-947, July.
    6. 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.
    7. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 1993. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency: Techniques and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072181.
    8. FitzRoy, Felix & Smith, Ian, 1995. "The demand for rail transport in European countries," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 153-158, July.
    9. Berger, Allen N. & Humphrey, David B. & Pulley, Lawrence B., 1996. "Do consumers pay for one-stop banking? Evidence from an alternative revenue function," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 1601-1621, November.
    10. Bauer, Paul W., 1990. "Recent developments in the econometric estimation of frontiers," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 39-56.
    11. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    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. Berger, Allen N. & Humphrey, David B., 1997. "Efficiency of financial institutions: International survey and directions for future research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 175-212, April.
    2. Bauer, Paul W. & Berger, Allen N. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Humphrey, David B., 1998. "Consistency Conditions for Regulatory Analysis of Financial Institutions: A Comparison of Frontier Efficiency Methods," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 85-114, March.
    3. Wu, Yanrui, 1995. "The productive efficiency of Chinese iron and steel firms A stochastic frontier analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 215-222, September.
    4. Abhiman Das & K. R. Sanmugam, 2004. "Efficiency of Indian commercial banks during the reform period," Industrial Organization 0410005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bos, J.W.B. & Schmiedel, H., 2007. "Is there a single frontier in a single European banking market?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 2081-2102, July.
    6. Dairo Estrada & Poldy Osorio, 2004. "Effects of Financial Capital on Colombian Banking Efficiency," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 22(47), pages 162-201, December.
    7. Schure, Paul & Wagenvoort, Rien & O'Brien, Dermot, 2004. "The efficiency and the conduct of European banks: Developments after 1992," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 371-396.
    8. Hasan, Iftekhar & Marton, Katherin, 2003. "Development and efficiency of the banking sector in a transitional economy: Hungarian experience," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 2249-2271, December.
    9. Carvallo, Oscar & Kasman, Adnan, 2005. "Cost efficiency in the Latin American and Caribbean banking systems," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 55-72, January.
    10. Jiang, Chunxia & Yao, Shujie & Zhang, Zongyi, 2009. "The effects of governance changes on bank efficiency in China: A stochastic distance function approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 717-731, December.
    11. Maudos, Joaquin & Pastor, Jose M. & Perez, Francisco & Quesada, Javier, 2002. "Cost and profit efficiency in European banks," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 33-58, February.
    12. Abdelaziz Rouabah, 2002. "Economies d?échelle, économies de diversification et efficacité productive des banques luxembourgeoises : une analyse comparative des frontières stochastiques sur données en panel," BCL working papers 3, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    13. Abdul Wadud, 2013. "Impact of Microcredit on Agricultural Farm Performance and Food Security in Bangladesh," Working Papers 14, Institute of Microfinance (InM).
    14. Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2003. "Combining DEA and stochastic frontier models: An empirical Bayes approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 499-510, June.
    15. Chrysovalantis Gaganis & Iftekhar Hasan & Fotios Pasiouras, 2013. "Efficiency and stock returns: evidence from the insurance industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 429-442, December.
    16. Rao, Ananth, 2005. "Cost frontier efficiency and risk-return analysis in an emerging market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 283-303.
    17. Bernardo Maggi & Stefania P. S. Rossi, 2003. "An efficiency analysis of banking systems: a comparison of European and United States large commercial banks using different functional forms," Vienna Economics Papers 0306, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    18. Dong, Yizhe & Hamilton, Robert & Tippett, Mark, 2014. "Cost efficiency of the Chinese banking sector: A comparison of stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 298-308.
    19. Y. Wu, 1999. "Regional Integration, Productivity and Growth: A study of the Southern China region," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 99-14, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    20. Dhehibi, Boubaker & Lachaal, Lassaad & Elloumi, Mohamed & Messaoud, Emna B., 2007. "Measurement and Sources of Technical Inefficiency in the Tunisian Citrus Growing Sector," 103rd Seminar, April 23-25, 2007, Barcelona, Spain 9391, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    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:eee:transa:v:35:y:2001:i:5:p:459-472. 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.