The Productivity Growth Measures of the Taiwan Railway ─ January 1987 to December 1992

• Main Authors: Pei-Jean,Chung, 鍾佩真
• Other Authors: Showalter,Wang Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/32450809713933136417

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 交通管理(科學)學系 === 81 === The purpose of this study is to investigate the technological change and total factor productivity (TFP) of the Taiwan Railway. The productivity growth is decomposited into the effects of fac- tor inputs, outputs and operating characteristics (main line ca- pacity utilizatiion, seat utilization), and the TFP growth is de- composited into the effects of scale economies, technological progress, network and main line capacity utilization. This study utilized monthly time series data from January 1987 to December 1992 to construct a shortrun variable cost model ,treating the pension and compension expenses as semi-fixed costs which are excluded from the total variable cost. Based on the em- pirical estimation results, we found that: 1. The technological change of the Taiwan Railway was not Hick''s neutral. The productivity growth has been increasing in recent years. The annual growth rates were 3.6%and 5.3% in 1991 and 1992 respectively. Its productivity growth was mainly caused from the technological progress of "long-haul passenger ser- vice". The TFP growth has been positive except 1991. The growth rate of TFP in 1992 was the highest (1.36%). The main contribution to TFP growth was the effect of scale economies. 2. The Hedonic funtion indicated that the longer the transpora- tion distance, the lower the cost per output unit, in either passenger or freight services. 3. The relationships among the production factors become more clearly after the deduction of the semi-fixed cost.The Allen partial elasticities of substitution indicated that the uti- lization of labor factor is the least effective. 4. Due to the existence of the scope economies and the ray scale economies at the given product mix, the Taiwan Railway can ob- tain cost- saving benefits from joint production and scale eco- nomies by extending its output scale.