The impact of structural and compositional changes on the Canadian railway industry: 1958–1973

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to quantify the impact of structural changes, as measured by changes in the input-output coefficients, and changes in the composition of Gross National Expenditure on the key economic variables (tons of freight carried ton-miles, and revenue by major commodity groupings) of the Canadian railway industry for the period 1958–1973. For this purpose, we have used the estimated parameters of the commodity output forecasting and the rail model, developed elsewhere (Rao, 1977). The main finding of this paper is that these changes have reduced the growth rates of railway tons and ton-miles by 3% and 6% respectively, whereas they increased the real revenue growth rate by 5%, as compared with a hypothetical base under which both the structure and composition remained constant.