Economies Of Scale In Production Research Articles

Robust Exclusion Through Loyalty Discounts

We consider loyalty discounts whereby the seller promises to give buyers who commit to buy from it a lower price than the seller gives to uncommitted buyers. We show that an incumbent seller can use loyalty discounts to soften price competition between itself and a rival, which raises market prices to all buyers. Each individual buyer’s agreement to a loyalty discount externalizes most of the harm of that individual agreement onto all the other buyers. The resulting externality among buyers makes it possible for an incumbent to induce buyers to sign these contracts even if they reduce buyer and total welfare. Thus, if the entrant cost advantage is not too large, we prove that with a sufficient number of buyers, there does not exist any equilibrium in which at least some buyers do not sign loyalty discount contracts, and there exists an equilibrium in which all buyers sign and the rival is foreclosed from entry. As a result, with a sufficient number of buyers, an incumbent can use loyalty discounts to increase its profit and decrease both buyer and total welfare. Further, the necessary number of buyers can be as few as three. These effects occur even in the absence of economies of scale in production and even if the buyers are not intermediaries who compete with each other in a downstream market.

A two-stage stochastic programming method for designing multi-stage global supply chains with stochastic demand

This paper encompasses the design of a multi-stage global supply chain with stochastic demand. The network consists of manufacturing sites, distribution centres and retail zones situated at both domestic and international locations. Tactical level decisions to be made are the selection of international outsourcing partners, transportation modes and the capacity of each facility. To provide a practical decision support tool for the design of global supply chains, we consider the existence of exchange rate variations and the presence of economies of scale in production which lead to different capacity expansion and outsourcing policies. We formulate the problem as a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model with the objective of minimising the overall costs and maximising the expected average service level. A two-stage stochastic programming method is used to handle the stochasticity in demand. Finally, the proposed model is applied to various cases to demonstrate its applicability in facilitating decision making for managers.

Scale Economies and Cities

This is summarizes the policy-relevant insights of a generation of research on scale economies. Scale economies in production are of three types: internal economies associated with large plants, localization economies that come from sharing of inputs and infrastructure and from greater competition among firms, and urbanization economies that are generated through diversity and knowledge spillovers. The benefits (and costs) of localization and urbanization are together called 'external (dis) economies' because they arise due to factors outside any single household, farm or firm. The empirical literature yields some stylized facts. Internal scale economies are low in light industries and high in heavy industries. External scale economies are amplified by economic density and dissipate with distance from places where economic activity is concentrated. Scale economies are most visibly manifest in towns and cities. To simplify somewhat, towns allow firms and farms to exploit internal scale economies, medium-sized cities help firms in an industry exploit localization economies, and large cities and metropolises provide urbanization economies to those who locate within or nearby. Scale economies have implications for policy makers. The first is that because urban settlements rise and thrive because market agents demand their services, they should be seen as creatures of the market, not creations of the state. The second is that because settlements of different sizes provide differing services, towns, cities, and metropolises are more often complements for one another, not substitutes. Third, as a corollary, policymakers should aim to improve the functioning of urban settlements, and not become preoccupied with their size.

Factor markets in Nieboer conditions: pre-colonial West Africa, c.1500–c.1900

ABSTRACTThis article reviews the history of factor markets in pre-colonial West Africa, both during and after the Atlantic slave trade. The forms and volume of these markets strongly reflected the natural and technological environment, and a horizontally and vertically uneven distribution of coercive and purchasing power. The general abundance of land and absence of economies of scale in production militated against contracting for land and free labour. Hence the most widespread and large-scale factor market was in slaves. Capital and credit were transacted mostly within networks of trust and/or on the security of human pawns. With considerable social costs, variously reinforced and restricted by states, pawning and (especially) the intra-West-African slave trade channelled labour into the production of commodities for sale, contributing to the nineteenth-century growth of certain coastal and interior economies. It was only in the latter era that land rights began to be commercialized. This was not a response to a general shift in factor ratios, but rather to demand for specific kinds of land in specific places, stimulated by the growth of export markets for agricultural commodities.

Economies of Scale, Ideology and Trade Policy

This paper analyses trade policy within a modified version of the well-known political economy models of Hillman (1989) and Long & Vousden (1991). The modified model incorporates economies of scale in production and cast doubts on viewing trade policy as solely determined by political ideology and re-election motives. Cross-country analyses confirm our predictions and establish that strategic economic as well as political concerns are dominant in trade policy.

The Trade-Off between Foreign Direct Investments and Exports: The Role of Multiple Dimensions of Distance

To serve foreign markets, firms can either export or set up a local subsidiary through horizontal foreign direct investment (FDI). The conventional proximity–concentration theory suggests that FDI substitutes for trade if distance between countries is large, while exports become more important if scale economies in production are large. This paper investigates empirically the effect of different dimensions of distance on the choice between exports and FDI. We find that different dimensions of distance affect exports and FDI differently. There is clear evidence of a proximity–concentration trade‐off in geographical terms: the share of FDI sales in total foreign sales increases with geographical distance. The positive relation between import tariffs and FDI intensity provides further evidence for a trade‐off resulting from trade costs. On the other hand, the share of FDI decreases with language differences and cultural and institutional barriers. The latter dimensions of distance thus affect FDI more strongly than exports.

Estimating scale economies of the wireless telecommunications industry using EVA data

This paper proposes a new estimation method of total cost and average cost curves and applies it to the telecommunications industry. The method is more flexible and entails less hassle for data collection than traditional methods. The results show that the long-run average cost (LRAC) curve is downward sloping, revealing the presence of economies of scale in production. The two largest Korean mobile network operators are realizing full economies of scale, while the smallest operator is not. Finally, the paper recommends three policy alternatives that the Ministry of Information and Communication of Korea can draw on to increase efficiency in the Korean mobile telecommunications market.

Retrospective evaluation of appliance price trends

Real prices of major appliances (refrigerators, dishwashers, heating and cooling equipment) have been falling since the late 1970s despite increases in appliance efficiency and other quality variables. This paper demonstrates that historic increases in efficiency over time, including those resulting from minimum efficiency standards, incur smaller price increases than were expected by the Department of Energy (DOE) forecasts made in conjunction with standards. This effect can be explained by technological innovation, which lowers the cost of efficiency, and by market changes contributing to lower markups and economies of scale in production of higher efficiency units. We reach four principal conclusions about appliance trends and retail price setting: 1. For the past several decades, the retail price of appliances has been steadily falling while efficiency has been increasing. 2. Past retail price predictions made by the DOE analyses of efficiency standards, assuming constant prices over time, have tended to overestimate retail prices. 3. The average incremental price to increase appliance efficiency has declined over time. DOE technical support documents have typically overestimated this incremental price and retail prices. 4. Changes in retail markups and economies of scale in production of more efficient appliances may have contributed to declines in prices of efficient appliances.

Economies of scale and trade policy: The median voter model revisited

Why do some political economy models perform so poorly in predicting actual trade policy? Do scale economies provide the missing puzzle to our understanding of the anti-trade bias? By integrating economies of scale in production, this paper theoretically reinstates the median voter model as in Mayer [Mayer, W. (1984). Endogenous tariff formation. The American Economic Review, 74, 970–985] as a suitable political economy model in predicting trade policy. The modified model generates the scope for the anti-trade bias and predicts that sometimes economic, rather than political, considerations may lead to restrictive trade.

The Doha Round's Public Health Legacy: Strategies for the Production and Diffusion of Patented Medicines under the Amended TRIPS Provisions

The entry into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement in 1995 transformed the international intellectual property system. The harmonization of basic intellectual property standards has operated to protect investment in innovation, limiting risks from unjustified 'free riding'. Yet these same harmonized IP standards sharply curtailed the traditional capacity of suppliers of public goods, such as health care and nutrition, to address priority needs of less affluent members of society, particularly in (but not limited to) developing countries. In the Doha Declaration, the Waiver Decision of 30 August 2003 and the Article 31bis Protocol of Amendment, stakeholders concerned with re-opening policy space for the supply of newer pharmaceutical products pushed back against restrictive elements of the TRIPS Agreement.Governments around the world are in the process of deciding whether to ratify and accept the Article 31bis Amendment. Based on their Study for the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament, the authors argue that acceptance of the Amendment will provide a 'net benefit' for countries seeking to improve access to medicines. At the insistence of WTO delegations acting on behalf of the originator pharmaceutical industry lobby, Article 31bis regrettably is saddled with unnecessary administrative hurdles. Nonetheless, through skillful lawyering, political determination and coordinated planning, the system can be made to work. Among other options, expeditious back-to-back compulsory licensing linked with pooled procurement strategies may effectively achieve economies of scale in production and distribution of medicines.The authors doubt that the international political environment would support renegotiation of an 'improved' solution. They express concern that failure to bring the Amendment into force will open the door to a campaign to undermine the Waiver Decision. Recent events in Brazil and Thailand illustrate both the opportunities and risks associated with implementing TRIPS exception mechanisms, and help to inform views on the negotiating environment. Specific proposals for regional cooperation in implementing the Amendment are laid out, and the authors emphasize the importance of pursuing concrete transfer of technology measures in support of developing country pharmaceutical manufacturing. Over-reliance on private market mechanisms for the supply of public health goods leaves the international community with an unresolved collective action problem on a large scale. Oxford University Press 2007, all rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

Sharing Geographic Information: An Assessment of the Geospatial One-Stop

Humans have always exchanged geographic information, but the practice has grown exponentially in recent years with the popularization of the Internet and the Web, and with the growth of geographic information technologies. The arguments for sharing include scale economies in production and the desire to avoid duplication. The history of sharing can be viewed in a three-phase conceptual framework, from an early disorganized phase, through one centered on national governments as the primary suppliers of geographic information, to the contemporary somewhat chaotic network of producers and consumers. Recently geolibraries and geoportals have emerged as mechanisms to support searches for geographic information relevant to specific needs. We review the design of the Geospatial One-Stop (GOS), a project sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to provide a single portal to geographic information, and reflecting the current state of the art. Its design includes a portal to distributed assets, accessible through a simple Web browser, a catalog based on the widely used Federal Geographic Data Committee metadata standard, services to assess and validate potential accessions, directories to available geographic information services, and automated metadata harvesting from registered sites. GOS represents a significant technological advance, however, its potential to provide a general marketplace for geographic information beyond government data has not been realized. Its future will be driven in part by technological advances in areas such as searching and automated metadata harvesting, as well as by clearer definition of its domain, either as the geoportal for U.S. data or as a broader geoportal with appropriate international or private partners. Incorporation of informal and heuristic search methods used by humans appears to offer the best direction for improvement in search technologies.

Integrated capacity, demand, and production planning with subcontracting and overtime options

AbstractModels for integrated production and demand planning decisions can serve to improve a producer's ability to effectively match demand requirements with production capabilities. In contexts with price‐sensitive demands, economies of scale in production, and multiple capacity options, such integrated planning problems can quickly become complex. To address these complexities, this paper provides profit‐maximizing production planning models for determining optimal demand and internal production capacity levels under price‐sensitive deterministic demands, with subcontracting and overtime options. The models determine a producer's optimal price, production, inventory, subcontracting, overtime, and internal capacity levels, while accounting for production economies of scale and capacity costs through concave cost functions. We use polyhedral properties and dynamic programming techniques to provide polynomial‐time solution approaches for obtaining an optimal solution for this class of problems when the internal capacity level is time‐invariant. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007

Integrating IT-Enabled Social Networks with Transaction Cost Economics and the Resource Based View of the Firm

Integrating IT-Enabled Social Networks with Transaction Cost Economics and the Resource Based View of the Firm

The joint replenishment problem with variable production costs

This paper discusses an approach to solve the joint replenishment problem in a production environment with variable production cost. These variable production costs occur due to economies of scale in production. Under this environment, the model leads to a global optimization problem, which is investigated by using some standard results from convex analysis. Consequently, an effective and exact solution procedure is proposed. The proposed procedure is guaranteed to return a solution with a predetermined quality in terms of the objective function value. A computational study is provided to illustrate the performance of the proposed solution procedure with respect to the running time.

The Effect of Asymmetric Bidder Size on an Auction’s Performance: Are More Bidders Always Better?

One commonly held belief in designing auctions is that increasing the number of bidders makes an auction more competitive. Therefore, a buyer who wishes to minimize her procurement costs is better off inviting more suppliers to participate. In this paper, we question the validity of this belief by shedding light on bidders’ behavior when bidders experience economies of scale in production and differ in their production capacity. We consider a setting with two different sized bidders, global and small. We assume that global bidders have a large production capacity (can win in more than one auction) and experience economies of scale in production, whereas small bidders can win in at most one auction. In this new setting, we focus on the impact of allowing both global and small suppliers to compete against each other on the performance of an auction.

A monopolistic market for advanced traveller information systems and road use efficiency

Advanced traveller information systems (ATIS) are likely to exhibit significant economies of scale in production and operation. Private provision would therefore typically occur under considerable market power. An important policy question is whether the resulting distortions would aggravate or reduce distortions in the transport market itself, notably external effects such as congestion. We consider such questions by presenting an integrated model that captures the interactions between a congested transport market and a monopolistic market for advanced traveller information systems (ATIS). Three market failures operate simultaneously: congestion on the road, a declining average benefit of information when information penetration rises, and monopolistic pricing by the provider of information. Some key results are as follows. Monopoly information pricing appears not to be the most attractive option from a system efficiency viewpoint. A subsidy in the information market can help realise a second-best optimum of road use. Relatively low uncertainty on the road and high information costs limit the monopolist’s profit on the information market, as well as relative system efficiency. While relatively inelastic demand for mobility, counter intuitively, negatively affects the monopolist’s profit, the relative social benefits from private information peak at intermediate demand elasticities.

Exploring New Supply Chain Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Within the pharmaceutical industry, several recent environmental changes have led companies to put into practice SCM initiatives. This article investigates the implementation of improvement initiatives that pharmaceutical companies undertake to obtain better supply network performance. It reports on four networks whose central firms are leading pharmaceutical companies. The SCM improvement initiatives implemented in the analysed pharmaceutical cases mainly concern redesign of the supply network configuration, with the intent of exploiting production scale economies, and the adoption of supplier and demand integration initiatives. Using the theory of trade-offs in strategic management, the article seeks to explore the reasons why leading pharmaceutical companies select particular mixes of SCM initiatives.

Group Buying on the Web: A Comparison of Price-Discovery Mechanisms

Web-based group-buying mechanisms are being widely used for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. We survey currently operational online group-buying markets, and then study this phenomenon using analytical models. We build on the literatures in information economics and operations management in our analytical model of a monopolist offering Web-based group-buying under different kinds of demand uncertainty. We derive the monopolist's optimal group-buying schedule under varying conditions of heterogeneity in the demand regimes, and compare its profits with those that obtain under the more conventional posted-price mechanism. We further study the impact of production postponement by endogenizing the timing of the pricing and production decisions in a two-stage game between the monopolist and buyers. Our results have implications for firms' choice of price-discovery mechanisms in e-markets, and for the scheduling of production and pricing decisions in the presence (and absence) of scale economies of production.

Long-Run Supply Effects and the Elasticities Approach to Trade

Krugman (1989) argued that differences across countries in estimated income elasticities of import demand are due to omission of an exporter supply effect. He showed that such an effect can be derived in a theoretical model with economies of scale in production and a taste for variety in consumption. In his model, countries grow by producing new varieties of goods, and they are able to export these goods without suffering any deterioration in their terms of trade. This paper analyzes U.S. import demand from different source countries and finds strong evidence of a supply effect of roughly half the magnitude (0.75) of the income elasticity (1.5). Price elasticities for the most part are estimated close to -1, which is typical for the literature. Exclusion of the supply effect leads to overestimation of the income elasticity. Results based on U.S. exports to different destinations are less robust, but largely corroborate these findings.

How cost efficient are Australia's mining industries?

This paper uses a stochastic translog cost frontier model and a panel data of five key mining industries in Australia over 1968–1969 to 1994–1995 to investigate the sources of output growth and the effects of cost inefficiency on total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The results indicate that mining output growth was largely input-driven rather than productivity-driven. Although there were some gains from technological progress and economies of scale in production, cost inefficiency which barely exceeded 1.1% since the mid-1970s in the mining industries was the main factor causing low TFP growth.