Testing for economies of scope in European railways : an effciency analysis

In this paper, we conduct a pan-European efficiency analysis to investigate the performance of European railways with a particular focus oil economics of vertical integration. We test the hypothesis that integrated railways realise economies of scope and, thus, produce railway services with a higher level of efficiency. To determine whether joint or separate production is more efficient, we apply a data envelopment analysis super-efficiency bootstrapping model which relates the efficiency for integrated production to a reference set consisting of separated firms which Use a different production technology. We find that for a majority of European railways, economics of scope exist.