How to protect "captive shippers" from monopolistic abuses by a railway? In an "open access" system, it's straightforward: provide infrastructure access to a competing train operating company. In a system without open access - as in, for example, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil -...

In its 2023 decision approving the acquisition of the Kansas City Southern Railway by the Canadian Pacific, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board conditioned its approval on the merged railway's commitment "to keep gateways open on commercially reasonable terms" - that is, to allow shippers and...

In its 2023 decision approving the acquisition of the Kansas City Southern Railway by the Canadian Pacific, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board conditioned its approval on the merged railway's commitment "to keep gateways open on commercially reasonable terms" - that is, to allow shippers and...

How to protect "captive shippers" from monopolistic abuses by a railway? In an "open access" system, it's straightforward: provide infrastructure access to a competing train operating company. In a system without open access - as in, for example, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil -...

How to protect “captive shippers” from monopolistic abuses by a railway? In an “open access” system, it’s straightforward: provide infrastructure access to a competing train operating company. In a system without open access – as in, for example, the United States, Canada, Mexico,...

In its 2023 decision approving the acquisition of the Kansas City Southern Railway by the Canadian Pacific, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board conditioned its approval on the merged railway’s commitment “to keep gateways open on commercially reasonable terms” – that is, to allow...

This paper presents a non-technical introduction to three economic tools that have in recent years become widespread in competition law enforcement in general and in the analysis of proposed mergers in particular: critical loss analysis, upward pricing pressure, and the vertical arithmetic. In...

This lecture, delivered at the Higher School of Economics in 2020, opens with a discussion of the modern history of economists' treatment of network industries: from cost-of-service regulation through incentive regulation to vertical restructuring. This history is then applied to the freight...

Twenty years of debate regarding the restructuring of the Chinese freight railway have failed to yield a consensus. Early policy statements favoring the creation of above-the-rail competition over a monopoly infrastructure – the "European" model of rail restructuring – have broadened into a...

The European Commission years ago adopted a policy of encouraging the substitution of motor carrier haulage of freight with rail and water carrier haulage, as part of its “green” agenda of reducing fuel consumption, emission of pollutants, carbon intensity, and road congestion. Regarding...