Modeling Economic Inefficiency Caused by Public Transit Subsidies

An empirical investigation into the distorting effects of subsidies on firm efficiency, this book puts together and applies recent developments in econometric methods to explore efficiency consequences of government subsidy on firm operations. Within the neoclassical framework, the book provides analytical solutions capturing the effect of subsidy on cost, output, input demand, and allocative distortions when the firm receives operating and capital subsidies. By doing so, the book avoids the ad-hoc models that have been used to estimate the effect of subsidy on firm efficiency in the transit industry.



The book takes the analytical model and develops empirical models to estimate the effect of subsidy on firm efficiency in transit firms. It applies a variety of techniques-deterministic, stochastic frontier estimation, and Data Envelopment Analysis to capture various aspects of the effect of subsidy. It separates allocative inefficiency into those due to subsidy and those due to internal factors. The book's contribution is the consistency and thoroughness with which the authors deal with the topic and the rigor of the empirical estimation.