Railroads and the efficiency of internal markets: some conceptual and practical considerations.

Elaborates on some of the conceptual and practical questions related to (a) the notion of markets and market integration as an allocative device; (b) the distinction between the quantity and price characteristics of market unification; and (c) the link between the economic gains from market integration and the railroads' social savings. In so doing, draws on research on the unification of the Russian grain market and on other studies in the field. Infers that unless empirical support for such contentions is found, one cannot escape the tentative conclusion that, important as they may be, the economic gains from market integration are both conceptually and empirically embodied in the direct aggregate real income gains as measured by the railroad-generated social saving. -from Author