IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/atlecj/v44y2016i3d10.1007_s11293-016-9510-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cost Efficiency of Urban Transport in an Era of Widespread Corruption: the Case of New York Street Railways

Author

Listed:
  • Donald F. Vitaliano

    (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Abstract

Bribery to secure street railway franchises was notorious in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, and New York was the epicenter of this type of fraud. This paper analyzes the cost efficiency of 64 franchises operated in 31 cities across New York state in 1890. The modeling platform is a stochastic frontier estimation of a variable cost function. Contrary to expectations, these private firms are deemed to have minimized costs, and possibly also optimally adjusted their capital stock. Although significant density economies are estimated, no scale or network economies are revealed, which is consistent with the multiplicity of firms operating even in cities of modest size. The efficiency of these firms contrasts sharply with the poor cost efficiency estimated for modern municipal bus operations.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald F. Vitaliano, 2016. "Cost Efficiency of Urban Transport in an Era of Widespread Corruption: the Case of New York Street Railways," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 44(3), pages 293-302, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:44:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11293-016-9510-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-016-9510-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11293-016-9510-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11293-016-9510-x?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 2008. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195183528, Decembrie.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser, 2001. "Public Ownership in the American City," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1930, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    3. Mark Schankerman & M. Ishaq Nadiri, 1984. "Restriced Cost Functions and the Rate of Return to Quasi-Fixed Factors, with an Application to R&D and Capital in the Bell System," NBER Working Papers 1259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser, 2001. "Public Ownership in the American City," NBER Working Papers 8613, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "The Rise of the Regulatory State," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 401-425, June.
    2. Glaeser, Edward & Scheinkman, Jose & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The injustice of inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 199-222, January.
    3. Ortega de Miguel, Enrique & Sanz Mulas, Andres, 2007. "A public sector multinational company: The case of Canal de Isabel II," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 143-150, June.
    4. Jeffrey P. Cohen & Cletus C. Coughlin & Sarosh R. Khan, 2002. "Aviation security and terrorism: a review of the economic issues," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Sep), pages 9-24.
    5. Hess, David J. & Jordan, Megan L., 2023. "Demunicipalization as political process: Strategic action and the sale of municipal electric utilities in the United States," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Rebecca Menes, 2006. "Limiting the Reach of the Grabbing Hand. Graft and Growth in American Cities, 1880 to 1930," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 63-93, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2004. "Do public sector reforms get rusty? An empirical analysis on privatization of solid waste collection," Public Economics 0409014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Oliver Lewis & Avner Offer, 2021. "Railways as Patient Capital," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _195, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Williams, Jonathan, 2013. "The random parameters stochastic frontier cost function and the effectiveness of public policy: Evidence from bank restructuring in Mexico," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    10. Margarita Genius & Spiro Stefanou & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2009. "Productivity Growth and Efficiency under Leontief Technology: An Application to US Steam-Electric Power Generation Utilities," Working Papers 0913, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    11. Deng, Yaguo & Lopes Moreira Da Veiga, María Helena & Wiper, Michael Peter, 2016. "Efficiency evaluation of Spanish hotel chains," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS 23897, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.
    12. Martins-Filho, Carlos & Ziegelmann, Flávio Augusto & Torrent, Hudson da Silva, 2013. "Local Exponential Frontier Estimation," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 33(2), November.
    13. Barnabé Walheer, 2018. "Cost Malmquist productivity index: an output-specific approach for group comparison," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 79-94, February.
    14. Planinc Tanja & Kukanja Marko & Žnidaršič Anja, 2022. "The Interplay of Restaurant SMEs’ Entrepreneurial and Environmental Characteristics, Management of the Requisite Assets, and Operational Efficiency," Organizacija, Sciendo, vol. 55(2), pages 160-177, May.
    15. Hery Purnomo Tunggal & Tati Suhartati Joesron, 2019. "Technical Efficiency Analysis Of Indonesian Small And Micro Industries: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 201903, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Nov 2019.
    16. Kamil Makieła & Błażej Mazur & Jakub Głowacki, 2022. "The Impact of Renewable Energy Supply on Economic Growth and Productivity," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-13, June.
    17. Guerrero C., Alejandro & Rivera T., César, 2009. "Mexico: total productivity changes at the principal container ports," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    18. M. Lábaj & M. Luptáčik & E. Nežinský, 2014. "Data envelopment analysis for measuring economic growth in terms of welfare beyond GDP," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 407-424, August.
    19. Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá & Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & Marko Petrović & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2020. "Which estimator to measure local governments’ cost efficiency? The case of Spanish municipalities," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 51-82, March.
    20. Shoaib Alam Siddiqui & Ali Shaddady, 2023. "How Profit Efficient is Indian Life Insurance Industry: A DEA Study," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.

    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:kap:atlecj:v:44:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11293-016-9510-x. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.