Sub Saharan Railway Firms: Reforms and Demand Effects on Technical Efficiency - A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Between 1995 and 2005

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the technical efficiency of the Sub-Saharan African railway sector and its influencing factors. This efficiency depends on several factors. Using stochastic distance function methodology for a sample of 16 Sub-Saharan firms between 1995 and 2005, we found a positive effect of the public private partnerships and of the high levels of network exploitation and freight specialization on the performance of the railway sector. We decompose the measured scores of efficiency regarding the environmental context which permits to adjust the benchmarking efficiency studies and allows setting the appropriated objectives by the policy deciders.