Project Description
US railroad companies are a key mode of freight transportation. These companies transported 70 percent of all coal to US power plants and over 1.7 million rail carloads of grain in 2024. Given their importance to the US economy, any changes in this market have potential significant effects on the price of goods and services purchased by consumers. Thus, the recent approval of the merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern rail companies could be cause for concern to companies who use rail to ship products if rail rates increase. Such an increase, though, is not certain since this merger could promote efficiency gains that are passed on to shippers in the form of lower rates. While it is clearly too early to test whether this recently approved merger promotes cost savings through efficiency gains, examining efficiency changes associated with past rail mergers can provide valuable information on this issue. This study contributes to our understanding of rail mergers’ effect on the economy by estimating efficiency levels of rail companies before and after merging using rail financial information for the 21st century.
Tasks and Responsibilites
The student will collect financial data from publicly accessible R1 railroad files and then use those data to estimate efficiency scores for rail companies pre and post railroad mergers.
Desired Qualifications
None Listed.