| Abstract: | The U.S. railroad industry has seen considerable merger activity over the past two decades and more mergers are expected in the near future, but little is presently known about the relative social benefits of alternative merger configurations. Using traffic data for origin-destination pairs affected by recent mergers, this paper examines the impact of end-to-end and parallel mergers on increases in the market share of merged firms. To the extent that increases in market share reflect social benefits in the form of improved service and lower costs, end-to-end mergers are found to outperform parallel mergers. |
