The Political Economy of Regulatory Costing: The Development of the Uniform Rail Costing System

This article explores the development of the Uniform Rail Costing System (URCS), which arose after the partial railroad deregulation of the 1970s and 1980s. In the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, Congress established a critical function for the URCS: to determine what movements would be under regulatory oversight. This was done to allow railroads a “safe harbor” for pricing, allowing an implicit return on their investments. The author briefly reviews the history of rail deregulation, including a discussion of economic cost concepts, including fixed costs, variable costs, marginal costs, and incremental costs. The author goes on to further delineate the pricing problems that railroads face, with high fixed costs resulting in differential pricing. Other topics include regulatory costing, Rail Form A (a costing system), deregulation and the railroad renaissance, cost recovery percentages, and how the variable cost threshold became law. Another section discusses the Railroad Accounting Principles Board (RAPB), established in 1984 to establish a framework for regulatory provisions and principles. The author concludes by summarizing the work of the URCS and its role in the partial deregulation of the railroad industry over the past 25 years.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/31144651
• Authors:
  • Huneke, William F
• Publication Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 196-223
• Serial:
  • Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy
  • Volume: 84
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Association for Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy
  • ISSN: 1078-5906
  • Serial URL: http://www.atlp.org/journal.html

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Deregulation; Economic factors; Laws and legislation; Pricing; Railroads
• Identifier Terms: Uniform Rail Costing System
• Subject Areas: Economics; Law; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01691157
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 22 2019 11:39AM