2021

Jin Zeng, Beijing Jiaotong University
Fangrong Qi, Beijing Jiaotong University

The evaluation research of the railway freight rate can improve the marketing ability of the railway freight rate, and help the freight price management personnel to judge the trend of market price risk and make the correct decision of price adjustment direction. In terms of qualitative evaluation, 15 freight rate evaluation indexes are selected in this paper to establish the freight rate evaluation index system. Based on the improved grey relational grade analysis model, the freight rate's comprehensive state evaluation value is calculated. The improved grey relational analysis not only considers the relation between each index and freight rate, but also examines the relationship between each index, and the evaluation result is more comprehensive and objective. In terms of quantitative evaluation, based on the bi-level programming model, the freight rate's optimal price is calculated by taking the maximum freight profit of the railway transport enterprise as the upper target and the minimum freight cost of the owner of the cargo as the lower target. Finally, the S Railway Bureau's actual coal transportation in 2017 is taken as an example for analysis.

James Nolan, University of Saskatchewan
Benny Mantin, Universite du Luxembourg

Considering the importance of being able to develop policies to mitigate environmental externalities, the existence and degree of pass-through associated with externality taxation or pricing has been postulated to be strongly linked to the degree of market power possessed by the firm(s) being charged. In any case, the practical magnitude of this effect is poorly understood. This situation is no different in the critical maritime shipping industry, which now finds itself subject to controversial environmental taxation. To understand what might occur under this policy in this very concentrated industry, we develop a detailed economic experiment that emulates the relationship between a monopoly carrier and a set of shippers. The experimental framework produces stylized data to be tested for several relevant behavioral and industry hypotheses. Experimentation also allows us to assess the effects of parameter variation across key determinants of environmental pass-through relevant to maritime shipping. Such factors in this analysis include (but are not limited to) market demand, timing of tax implementation and relative levels of shipper costs. We find that in this high market power situation, some limited pass through of the imposed environmental tax occurs, but its magnitude is far less then predicted under the market circumstances. The latter may be a consequence of beliefs about individual fairness that sometimes occur in experimental situations.