Law and Economic Regulation in Transportation

Law and Economic Regulation in Transportation

Author: Paul S. Dempsey

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1986-04-22

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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Dempsey and Thoms provide an authoritative overview of the development of transportation law in the America in the last century. They trace the development of American transportation (including railroads, pipelines, water transport, motor carriers, and airlines), the origins of economic regulation, the changing role of regulators, and the effects of deregulation. Economic regulations are separated into three areas: policing entry and exit from transportation, efforts to keep rates just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory, and mergers, consolidations, antitrust, and other issues. The limitation of loss, damage, and other tort suits against carriers by legislation is also considered. Other chapters review government operation of railroads from Amtrak and Conrail to commuter trains and local freight lines, the Railway Labor Act and other labor legislation pertinent to the transportation industry, and the sponsorship of urban mass transit by the federal government.


The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation

The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation

Author: Clifford Winston

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 0815714386

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For close to 100 years, America's surface freight industries, primarily rail and trucking, operated under the protective wing of the U.S. government. In 1980 Congress, finding vast inefficiencies in the two industries, substantially deregulated both, opening them at last to market competition. Deregulation has brought with it many changes—for firms within the industries, for their labor force, and for shippers and their customers. Clifford Winston, Thomas M. Corsi, Curtis M. Grimm, and Carol A Evans provide a comprehensive evaluation of the effect of the deregulation legislation on the rail and trucking industries. According to the authors, deregulation has made substantial progress in solving the two most vexing problems of the surface freight transportation industry—excessive rates in the trucking industry and insufficient returns on investment in the rail industry. Competition and efficiency have returned to both industries, and although the labor force in each has suffered wage and job losses, shippers and their customers have gained roughly $20 billion a year in benefits. The authors recommend policies that would continue to promote competition and the efficient use of highway and railway infrastructure.