MULTI-PRODUCT COST ATTRIBUTES: A STUDY OF U.K. BUILDING SOCIETIES

A translog multi-product cost function is estimated jointlywith a derived input cost share equation to obtain estimatesof overall economies of scale and ‘augmented’ overalleconomies of scale for the United Kingdom building society industry.The ‘augmented’ measure takes into account inducedchanges in the number of building society branch offices asthe outputs vary. The parameter estimates are then used to computethe derivatives of the marginal costs of each product to testfor product-specific economies of scale and economies of scope.