Publication
Title
Assessing competition in the european rail freight market : is there an oligopoly ?
Author
Abstract
This paper provides an analysis of the competition for the European rail freight market at the firm level : who are the main players on the European market and what is the current state of the competition ? The focus is on a static approach through indicators of concentration from the industrial economy like Herfindahl - Hirschman Index (HHI), the four-firm concentration ratio (CR4) and other. Main results show a high number of active operators on the West European market but a moderate level of concentration (loose oligopoly) with a risk of dominant position by the German incumbent (DB Schenker). They highlight a multiscale problem in terms of regulation with a moderate concentration on the European market, but the persistence of a strong market power from incumbents on their respective national markets. The study provides a new approach of the competition in the rail freight industry dealing with disaggregated data (firm level), a novel database (including newcomers and incumbents), an extended market scope (European level) and indicators usually used in the industrial economy but never for the rail freight industry because of the lack of data.
Language
English
Source (journal)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRANSPORT ECONOMICS
Publication
2019
DOI
10.19272/201906702002
Volume/pages
46 :1-2 (2019) , p. 15-36
ISI
000474757000002
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 01.08.2019
Last edited 25.11.2024
To cite this reference