IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/0118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Restructuring and Privatisation of British Rail: Was it really that bad?

Author

Listed:
  • Pollitt, M.
  • Smith, A.S.J.

Abstract

Following the government’s decision to place Railtrack into administration (October 2001), attention has focused on what went wrong with privatisation, and how crucial network investment will be financed in future. This paper uses a social cost-benefit analysis framework to assess whether the restructuring and privatisation of British Rail has produced savings in operating costs. The paper shows that major efficiencies have been achieved, consumers have benefited through lower prices, whilst the increased government subsidy has been largely recouped through privatisation proceeds. We find that output quality has also improved (pre-Hatfield). The achievement of further savings will be key to delivering improved rail services in the future. This paper finds that a privatised structure, where shareholders demand a return on their investment, has led to significant improvements in operating efficiency - it remains to be seen whether the new regime, with a not-for-profit infrastructure owner, will deliver the same efficiency improvements.

Suggested Citation

  • Pollitt, M. & Smith, A.S.J., 2001. "The Restructuring and Privatisation of British Rail: Was it really that bad?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0118, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0118
    Note: IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://files.econ.cam.ac.uk/repec/cam/pdf/wp0118.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Preetum Domah & Michael G. Pollitt, 2001. "The restructuring and privatisation of the electricity distribution and supply businesses in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 107-146, March.
    2. Chisari, Omar & Estache, Antonio & Romero, Carlos, 1999. "Winners and Losers from the Privatization and Regulation of Utilities: Lessons from a General Equilibrium Model of Argentina," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 357-378, May.
    3. Chisari, Omar & Estache, Antonio & Romero, Carlos, 1997. "Winners and losers from utility privatization in Argentina : lessons from a general equilibrium model," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1824, The World Bank.
    4. Antonio Estache & Gines De Rus, 2000. "Privatization and Regulation of Transport Infrastructure : Guidelines for Policymakers and Regulators," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15199, April.
    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. Mota, R.L., 2003. "The Restructuring and Privatisation of Electricity Distribution and Supply Business in Brazil: A Social Cost-Benefit Analysis," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0309, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Jamil, Muhammad Hamza & Ullah, Kafait & Saleem, Noor & Abbas, Faisal & Khalid, Hassan Abdullah, 2022. "Did the restructuring of the electricity generation sector increase social welfare in Pakistan?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Michael G. Pollitt, 2019. "The European Single Market in Electricity: An Economic Assessment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(1), pages 63-87, August.
    4. Nepal, Rabindra & Foster, John, 2015. "Electricity networks privatization in Australia: An overview of the debate," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 12-24.
    5. Imam, M. & Jamasb, T. & Llorca, M. & Llorca, M., 2018. "Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Electricity Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1801, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. repec:cuf:journl:y:2014:v:15:i:2:calderon:serven is not listed on IDEAS
    7. World Bank, 2003. "Argentina : Reforming Policies and Institutions for Efficiency and Equity of Public Expenditures," World Bank Publications - Reports 14637, The World Bank Group.
    8. Long Thanh Giang & Cuong Viet Nguyen & Tuyen Quang Tran & Vu Thieu, 2017. "Does Firm Agglomeration Matter to Labor and Education of Local Children? Evidence in Vietnam," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(4), pages 1015-1041, December.
    9. Khoung M. Vu & Anjula Gurtoo, 2014. "Utility Sector Performance Post Reforms: Investigating the South Asian Economies," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(2), pages 157-175, June.
    10. Khan, Iram, 2006. "Public vs. private sector : an examination of neo-liberal ideology," MPRA Paper 13443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Jamasb,Tooraj & Nepal,Rabindra & Timilsina,Govinda R., 2015. "A quarter century effort yet to come of age : a survey of power sector reforms in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7330, The World Bank.
    12. Estrin, Saul & Pelletier, Adeline, 2016. "Privatisation in Developing Countries: What Are the Lessons of Recent Experience?," IZA Discussion Papers 10297, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Marcela Meléndez & Andrés Gómez-Lobo Echeñique, 2007. "Social Policy, Regulation and Private Sector water supply: the case of Colombia," Working Papers wp252, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    14. Bertoméu-Sánchez, Salvador & Camos, Daniel & Estache, Antonio, 2018. "Do economic regulatory agencies matter to private-sector involvement in water utilities in developing countries?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 153-163.
    15. Esteban Manuel Greco & Diego Petrecolla & Carlos Adrián Romero, 2011. "Argentina’s Gas and Electricity Reform," Chapters, in: Werner Baer & David Fleischer (ed.), The Economies of Argentina and Brazil, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Estrin, Saul & Pelletier, Adeline, 2018. "Privatization in developing countries: what are the lessons of recent experience?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87348, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Martín Gonzalez-Eiras & Martín A. Rossi, 2007. "The Impact of Electricity Sector Privatization on Public Health," Research Department Publications 3228, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    18. Costa-Campi, M.T. & García-Quevedo, J. & Trujillo-Baute, E., 2018. "Electricity regulation and economic growth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 232-238.
    19. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda R. Timilsina, 2017. "A Quarter Century Effort Yet to Come of Age: A Survey of Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    20. Antonio Estache & L. Wren-Lewis, 2008. "Towards a Theory of Regulation for Developing Countries: Following Laffont's Lead," Working Papers ECARES 2008_018, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    21. Adams, Samuel & Atsu, Francis, 2015. "Assessing the distributional effects of regulation in developing countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 713-725.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • 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:cam:camdae:0118. 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: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    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.