Creating a National Champion: International Competition and Unbundling in Rail Transportation

This article investigates the incentives to unbundle operations and infrastructure in the railway industry in a two-country model from the viewpoint of national governments. The analysis shows that the decision to unbundle institutionally or organisationally with separated accounts depends crucially on the importance of cross-border transportation. If cross-border transportation is sufficiently important, national governments choose accounting separation. However, for low-efficiency gains within a bundled firm, national governments are stuck in a Prisoner's Dilemma and would be better off coordinating on institutional separation. This result justifies major policy initiatives of the European Union and explains the behaviour of national governments. © 2016 LSE and the University of Bath