THE PRICE-DISCRIMINATING PUBLIC ENTERPRISE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BRITISH RAIL
Many public enterprises, by virtue of having a considerable degree of either natural or legal monopoly power, are in a position to practice market segmentation and price discrimination: in the last fifteen years few have pursued them with such enthusiasm, at least in public, as British Rail. Much of the early literature on discriminatory pricing was indeed framed in terms of railways and other public utilities, but this is hardly a sufficient explanation. In this paper we consider when in general we would expect a public enterprise to adopt price discrimination, and in particular why British Rail's market situation has apparently lent itself so readily to that policy. To this end we look in the next section at the particular circumstances facing British Rail, concentrating on the passenger market only, and in the third section discuss a simple model (the main theoretical analysis is contained in the Appendix). The fourth section then considers the results of the theoretical work, and how far they might be applied in practice; the paper concludes with a brief summary.
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Availability:
- Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/856156
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Corporate Authors:
Bath University, England
Claverton Down
Bath BA2 7AY, England -
Authors:
- TROTTER, S D
- Publication Date: 1985-1
Media Info
- Pagination: p. 41-64
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Serial:
- Journal of Transport Economics and Policy
- Volume: 19
- Issue Number: 1
- Publisher: University of Bath
- ISSN: 0022-5258
- Serial URL: http://www.jtep.com
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Discrimination; Marketing; Mathematical models; Monopoly; Nationalization; Ownership; Passenger transportation; Pricing
- Identifier Terms: British Rail
- Subject Areas: Law; Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00396398
- Record Type: Publication
- Source Agency: British Railways
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Jul 31 1985 12:00AM