Economies of scale in Norwegian electricity distribution: a quantile regression approach

In this article, we investigate scale economies in Norwegian electricity distribution companies using a quantile regression approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to apply this estimation technique when analysing scale economies. We estimate the cost elasticities of the two output components: network length and number of customers, to calculate returns to scale. Our results show large potential of scale economies, particularly for the smallest companies. We also find that returns to scale is increasing over time. These findings have important implications for policymakers when they are deciding the structure of the industry in the future.     

Economies of scale in the Australian tourism industry

The measurement of economies of scale in the tourism industry has not been done to this point, as tourism is not a specific industry according to international statistical standards. Among many industries related to tourism, four sectors (accommodation, transport, retail trade and recreational services) across six states and two territories from 1997 to 2007 are studied as they contribute nearly 70% of tourism output in Australia. By comparing regression results from the Cobb–Douglas (C–D) production function and the translog production function, we find that there is evidence of increasing returns in transport, retail trade and recreational services at the industry level. However, accommodation is characterized by constant returns to scale at the industry level. As accommodation is responsible for the biggest share of tourism output, this suggests that overall the tourism sector is not characterized by increasing returns. We also find that the degrees of returns to scale from the C–D and translog production functions are different and that the imposition of input share also influences the empirical results. Both of these factors stress the importance of model specification to the measurement of economies of scale.     

Economies of scale in the US computer industry: An empirical investigation using data envelopment analysis

Up to recently, economists have had no good tools to measure the returns to scale of individual corporations in an industry. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a linear programming technique for determining the efficiency frontier (the envelope) to the inputs and outputs of a collection of individual corporations or other productive units. While DEA offers an avenue for calculating the returns to scale of individual corporations, the approach has been riddled by mathematical complications arising from the possibility of alternate optima. The present paper develops theory for calculating the entire range of these alternate optima. Furthermore, in a quite ambitions empirical application, DEA is employed to determine the time path of returns to scale of all publicly held U.S. computer companies over the time period 1980–1991. For the great majority of companies, a unique time path is obtained; only in less than 4 percent of the linear programming calculations is an entire range of alternate optima obtained. The results indicate that the computer industry was polarized into two camps: large aging corporations with decreasing returns to scale, and swarms of small upstart companies with advanced technology exhibiting increasing returns to scale.     

Economies of density, scale and scope in the water supply and sewerage sector: a study of four developing and transition economies

Using panel data, we estimate measures of density, scale and scope economies in four countries that differ substantially in their levels of economic development and in their piped water and sewerage coverage: Brazil, Moldova, Romania and Vietnam. We find evidence of economies of scale in Moldova, Romania and Vietnam. In Brazil, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of constant returns to scale. The results of this study show that the cost structure of water and sewerage utilities varies significantly within and between countries and over time.      

Economies of scale and the optimality of rotational dynamics in forestry

Forest harvesting is traditionally analyzed in terms of the Faustmann rotation model. This paper considers the identification of optimal forest harvest regimes using jump controls. This approach enables the structural assumptions of clear-cut technology and identical cycles in perpetuity which are imposed in a Faustmann model to be relaxed. Jump control models permit investigation of the biological and economic conditions which favour continuous growth management regimes as opposed to clear-cut harvest regimes. A numerical solution approach to the jump control model is presented. The link between the harvest cost function and the optimal biomass path is analyzed. Economies of scale are shown to generate rotational harvest as optimal policies.      

我国财产保险公司范围经济效应的实证检验与真伪性分析

我国自1996年实施产寿分业经营以来,保险公司数量急剧增加,财险业务中车险的比重不断上升,呈现出“一险独大”的市场状况。运用超越对数成本函数,对国内20家具有代表性的财险公司2005-2012年的范围经济状况进行检验发现,以保费为基础的检验结果与以总资产为基础的检验结果存在着很大差异,意味着我国财险公司的范围经济效应存在着“真伪性”。对此,通过对财务数据、业务结构、业务规模等数据的分析,鉴别了我国财险公司范围经济效应的“真、伪”性。     

Choice of the empirical definition of zero in the translog multiproduct cost functional form

The translog cost function is valuable to researchers for empirical analysis in themodelling of indirect cost and profit functions. A flaw of the functional form is in themodelling of zero output values. This study examined the impacts of empirical definition of zero output values on price elasticities, economies of scope and scale, using the translog cost function. Estimation of a system of cost and factor share equations with regularity condition imposed was conducted. Results show that the choice of default values affects policy recommendations.     

Estimating economies of scope using the profit function: A dual approach for the normalized quadratic profit function

Theoretical relationships between parameters of the normalized quadratic profit and cost functions are derived allowing for economies of scope to be calculated using profit function estimates. An empirical example confirms that the cost function is recovered using the estimated profit function.     

A dual measure of economies of scope

A derivative-based measure of economies of scope is obtained by exploiting the duality between the shadow cost function and the input distance function. This is a useful measure when the econometric estimation of a cost function is not viable.     

Economies of scale and mechanization in Chinese corn and wheat production

ABSTRACT

As the growth in Chinese farm productivity slowed down between 2000 and 2010, modernizing agriculture has become a priority of the Chinese government. Given the important role of mechanization and land reform policies in that context, this study investigates farm production in China with a specific emphasis on the potential role of mechanization as well as land and farm consolidation. A production function is estimated using farm household data on corn and wheat production in the Shandong and Hebei provinces. The results allowed us to explore the potential economies of scale across a range of farm size, the impact of land fragmentation, and assess the impact of machinery usage. Our findings suggest that, taken in isolation, the prospect for efficiency gains from mechanization and land reforms appears limited.     

我国广播影视业上市公司规模经济效应研究

广播影视企业是否存在规模经济效应直接反映了公司资源利用效率以及整体经营状况,基于16家广播影视业上市公司财务数据,建立超越对数生产函数模型,通过计算规模弹性系数判断广播影视企业是否存在规模经济效应。研究表明:现阶段我国广播影视业上市公司的经营均不存在规模经济效应,资产规模与规模收益弹性之间有极强的正相关性。     

我国商业银行规模经济评价方法研究

现有的关于银行规模经济评价的理论,要么基于参数法,要么专注于非参数法,很少有将二者兼顾考虑的评价方法.本文在充分考虑参数法和非参数法利弊的基础上,针对我国商业银行的特点提出了分类规模经济评价的思想.同时在利用DEA方法获得生产可能性集前沿面的基础上,建立了通过拟合生产函数获得各种规模经济评价指标的方法.     

Excess Entry in the Absence of Scale Economies

It is well-known that with free entry, more firms than is socially optimal typically enter provided there are economies of scale. This paper investigates the possibility of excess entry in the absence of scale economies We thank Simon Anderson, Tom Holmes, the late Arijit Mukherji, and Xavier Vives for helpful comments. We also thank the participants at the July 2001 Australasian Meetings of the Econometric Society in Auckland, June 2002 University of Melbourne-National University of Singapore Symposium and seminar participants at the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales for useful suggestions. We are especially thankful to an anonymous referee whose meticulous comments have helped us to improve the paper     

Economies of scale and scope in the European banking sector

In this article, using the data of 2008, we try to describe the impact of scale and product differentiation in 282 European banks. While evidence of the economies of scale is less clear, the results obtained using a translogarithmic function system show that significant economies of scope do exist even for new banking products like derivatives.

我国商业银行规模经济问题与金融改革策略透析

本文通过对中国商业银行 1 994— 2 0 0 0年的经营情况的实证分析 ,估算出了各大银行的成本 -规模弹性。在此基础上 ,本文指出 :商业银行经营过程中长期存在的不良贷款沉淀以及放款上的所有制偏好等问题已成为现阶段影响我国金融机构成本 -规模弹性的重要因素 ,而隐藏于它们背后的产权制度安排上的缺陷、金融领域的长期垄断 ,以及民营银行的“国民待遇”等问题则应成为下一步改革的关键     

Subsidies for renewable energies in the presence of learning effects and market power

We study the impact of learning by doing, learning spill-overs, and imperfect competition in a model with two types of electricity producers, an oligopolistic sector of polluting fossil-fuel utilities and a competitive fringe of non-polluting generators of electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E). Furthermore we consider an upstream industry of RES-E equipment producers engaged in learning by doing. We show that a first-best policy requires two instruments, a tax in the fossil-fuel sector and an output subsidy for RES-E equipment producers. We then study second-best-optimal feed-in tariffs that are paid to the generators of RES-E. By means of simulations we calculate the welfare loss of a second-best-optimal feed-in-tariff policy and analyze how market structure impacts on second-best-optimal feed-in tariffs.     

The effects of environmental taxes and quotas on the optimal timing of emission reductions under Choquet–Brownian uncertainty

The effects of two environmental policy options for the reduction of pollution emissions, i.e. taxes and non-tradable quotas, are analyzed. In contrast to the prior literature this work endogenously takes into account the level of emissions before and after the adoption of the new environmental policy. The level of emissions is determined by solving the firm's profit maximization problem under taxes and fixed quotas. We find that the optimal adoption threshold under taxes is always larger than the adoption threshold under fixed quota, even in a setting characterized by ecological uncertainty and ambiguity – in the form of Choquet–Brownian motions – on future costs and benefits over adopting environmental policies.     

Economies of scale and gender discrimination in transition: the case of the Republic of Tajikistan

This article tests for economies of scale and for evidence of discrimination based on gender lines in intra-household consumption allocations using data from the Living Standards Survey in the Republic of Tajikistan (TLSS). Overall results support the existence of household economies of scale in Tajikistan; however, empirical evidence supporting boy–girl discrimination is limited despite anecdotal evidence otherwise.     

Technical and scale efficiencies of meat goat farms in the USA

This study determines i) scale and technical efficiencies, ii) marginal productive contributions for inputs and outputs and iii) efficiency drivers of meat goat farms in the USA. We estimate an input distance function (IDF) using a stochastic production frontier (SPF) technique. The average technical efficiency (TE) for the USA meat goat whole farm was 0.74. The operator education level, percentage of annual net farm income from the goat operation, regional differences and holding of an off farm job are the efficiency drivers of USA meat goat farms. We find increasing returns to scale (RTS) for USA meat goat farms. Our results suggest that USA meat goat farms can be scale efficient if their optimal size of operation is greater than approximately 64 goats or greater than 40 breeding does. Empirical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation techniques show the consistency of finite-sample properties for the input distance function.     

An efficiency and welfare classification of rationing by waiting in the presence of bribery

Governments often allocate commodities at low prices and on a first-come-first-served basis (rationing by waiting), while bureaucrats who distribute the commodities usually take bribes. A model is developed to classify the efficiency implications of bribery, and socially optimal pricing schemes in rationing by waiting. If the rationed good and individual income spent on other goods (‘other’ income) are ‘complements’, then bribery may enhance allocative efficiency, and a ‘dual pricing’ scheme can augment social welfare. However, if the rationed commodity and ‘other’ income are ‘substitutes’, then bribery may not improve allocative efficiency, and distributing the rationed commodity free is socially optimal.