| The railway industry is the backbone of the comprehensive transportation system,as a green and safe transportation mode.Railways occupy an important position in most countries in the world and are inextricably linked to social and economic development.Western developed countries represented by Europe and the United States since the 1990s have adopted reform measures and introduced a series of policies to revitalize the development of the railway industry.Among them,the EU advocates the introduction of competition in the open railway transportation market and the integration of European railway transportation.In order to promote effective competition and development of the railway,the EU has expanded and upgraded the capacity of the railway network through policy support.One of the policies is the government’s subsidy policy for the railway transportation industry.Therefore,it is very necessary to study the effect of the government’s implementation of subsidy policies.On the one hand,government subsidies largely support the maintenance of railway network infrastructure and improve the status of railways in the transportation market.On the other hand,from the perspective of the core efficiency of economics,government subsidies may distort the market and competition,and thus affect the efficiency of railway transportation.This paper takes the EU railway market as an example to study the impact of government subsidies on railway transportation efficiency in the context of the opening of the transportation market.This paper first summarizes the open process of the railway transportation market and the government subsidy mechanism,and analyses the railway transportation market and the scale of government subsidies.Then,the data envelopment analysis method is used to measure the railway transportation efficiency level of EU countries from 2007 to 2016,and the comprehensive efficiency is decomposed into pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency,and the railway transportation efficiency in different regions and different countries is compared and analyzed.On this basis,using the panel data of EU countries from 2012 to 2016 to carry out Tobit model regression,the paperstudy the impact of government subsidies on railway transportation efficiency,and compare the effects of subsidies in different regions of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe,as well as the impact of public service obligation subsidies and infrastructure subsidies on railway transportation efficiency.The research results show that the overall efficiency of the EU railway transportation industry is generally fluctuating up and down.The whole industry has experienced repeated low to high and then high to low processes.In recent years,it has shown a slow downward trend.The average comprehensive efficiency in Western Europe is higher than Central and Eastern Europe.From the perspective of the EU as a whole,government subsidies have a signifieant impact on rail transport effieiency.Total government subsidies have a negative impact on overall efficiency,pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency.The effects of government subsidies vary in different regions.From the effects of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe,it can be seen that government subsidies have a greater inhibitory effect on railway transportation efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe.Different types of government subsidies have different effects on railway transportation efficiency.lt can be seen that public service obligation subsidies have a greater inhibitory effect on transport efficiency than infrastructure subsidies.Finally,based on the above research results,draw conclusions and summarize the implications for China. |
