Road Haulage Pricing in Developing Countries: The Tanzanian Experience

The lack of a perfect market has forced States – especially in less developed countries – to control or influence prices, at least for public utilities. After a theoretical review, this paper empirically analyses transport costing and freight rates for five privately owned and five publicly owned transport firms in Tanzania. The rates were indirectly influenced by the National Price Commission through pan-territorial pricing. Publicly owned transport firms had greater overhead costs than private transporters though the latter had higher transport costs. Parastatal transport fleets may have internalized some general-enterprise costs; and private transporters may have inflated their costs to justify higher rates. Bibliogr., notes.