Abstract
During the 1980's, researchers noted a trend towards increased concentration in the general freight, less-than-truckload (LTL) portion of the U.S. motor carrier industry. The purpose of this study is to employ new empirical industrial organization techniques to determine whether the more concentrated, post-1980, LTL industry exerted monopoly pricing behavior and to compare the nature of pricing behavior before and after regulation reform.
The results suggest that the trend toward increased industry concentration does not imply anti-competitive performance. Also, the results indicate the presence of regulation-induced market power several years prior to regulation reform in 1980.
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The authors wish to express their gratitude to Thomas Corsi for his contribution of the 1977 data used for this study. Also, we wish to thank Wesley Wilson for many helpful suggestions generously provided at various stages of this research.
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Nebesky, W., McMullen, B.S. & Lee, MK. Testing for market power in the U.S. motor carrier industry. Rev Ind Organ 10, 559–576 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01026881
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01026881