Off the rails: Is state ownership bad for productivity?

We estimate the effect of state ownership on the performance of colonial Indian railways. * We find the transition to state ownership did not lower total factor productivity or partial productivity in capital, labor and fuel. * Our estimates are within the range of estimates found by studies on the effects of privatization in non-democratic settings. * Our study highlights the conditions under which state ownership can produce comparable productivity to private ownership. The performance of Indian railways in the nineteenth century provides a great context to study the effects of state ownersh... Mehr ...