Scale economies in electricity distribution: a semiparametric analysis
配电规模经济的半参数分析
We estimate the costs of distributing electricity using data on municipal electric utilities in Ontario, Canada for the period 1993-5. The data reveal substantial evidence of increasing returns to scale with minimum efficient scale being achieved by firms with about 20,000 customers. Larger firms exhibit constant or decreasing returns. Utilities which deliver additional services (such as water|sewage), have significantly lower costs, indicating the presence of economies of…