The U.S. trucking industry was deregulated with
implementation of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. After
deregulation, increased concentration was observed in the
general freight segment of the industry. The purpose of
this study was to examine structural differences in general
freight commodity carriers and to help explain the increased
concentration. Cost functions were estimated for large and
small carriers in order to see whether or not size related
advantages exist.
Although the hypothesis of constant returns to scale
could not be rejected, significant structural differences
were found between large and small carriers. The results
imply that the services provided by large and small carriers
are different. Presence of "economies of integration and
"economies of route density" for large firms indicate the
possibility of oligopoly in the general freight commodity
trucking. / Graduation date: 1992
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/37265 |
| Date | 07 June 1991 |
| Creators | Tanaka, Hiroshi, 1960- |
| Contributors | McMullen, B. Starr |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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