The Argentinean North Central Railway, A State Funded line: Some Results About its Economic Performance for the period from 1889 to 1920

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, the state funded railways in Argentina became one the most importantenterprises in the country, partly because of its political role as well as its prominent part in the national economy.Our goal is to analyze the behavior of the North Central Railway. In order to do that, we will work with a series ofvariables that describe its economic performance, such as the annual series of rail kilometers, transportedpassengers, transported cargo (measured in tons) and a measure of the invested capital, which we are goingto called return. We are going to use some techniques related to time series analysis. These techniques will lead usto check if the transport policy carried out by the Argentine State was done with a true sense of economic gain ornot.