IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v59y2020i2d10.1007_s00181-019-01658-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ownership, pricing, and productivity: the case of electric distribution cooperatives

Author

Listed:
  • Heesun Jang

    (Korea Energy Economics Institute)

Abstract

This paper examines effects of Generation and Transmission (G&T) ownership on price–cost margin and productivity of electric distribution cooperatives. In the USA, electric cooperatives are organized as either G&T or distribution only. G&T is owned by a group of distribution cooperatives and provides wholesale power to its member distribution cooperatives usually under long-term full-requirement contracts. In this paper, I construct a model of cost minimization that allows us to recover price–cost margin and productivity estimates at the firm level. The model is estimated using a panel data of electric distribution cooperatives from 2006 to 2011, where a significant fraction of the firms have G&T ownership, while the rest of the firms do not have the ownership. The results show that cooperatives that are members of G&T have higher productivity by 6%. I also find that G&T ownership is associated with higher price–cost margin which is obtained from lower marginal cost of operation, although the effects are statistically insignificant depending on the specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Heesun Jang, 2020. "Ownership, pricing, and productivity: the case of electric distribution cooperatives," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 977-1001, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:59:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-019-01658-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-019-01658-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-019-01658-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-019-01658-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucas W. Davis & Catherine Wolfram, 2012. "Deregulation, Consolidation, and Efficiency: Evidence from US Nuclear Power," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 194-225, October.
    2. Greer, Monica L., 2008. "A test of vertical economies for non-vertically integrated firms: The case of rural electric cooperatives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 679-687, May.
    3. Jan De Loecker, 2013. "Detecting Learning by Exporting," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 1-21, August.
    4. Greer, Monica Lynne, 2003. "Can rural electric cooperatives survive in a restructured US electric market? An empirical analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 487-508, September.
    5. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 203-224, Winter.
    6. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    7. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Kevin Caves & Garth Frazer, 2015. "Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2411-2451, November.
    8. Sergio Destefanis & Ornella W. Maietta, 2015. "Property rights and efficiency in the care sector. Evidence from Italy," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 4(2), pages 98-115, February.
    9. Paul L. Joskow, 2003. "The Difficult Transition to Competitive Electricity Markets in the U.S," Working Papers 0308, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
    10. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    11. Kira R. Fabrizio & Nancy L. Rose & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2007. "Do Markets Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on US Electric Generation Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1250-1277, September.
    12. Christensen, Laurits R & Greene, William H, 1976. "Economies of Scale in U.S. Electric Power Generation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 655-676, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gilcrease, Winston & DiCosmo, Valeria & Padovan, Dario, 2022. "Trends of rural electric cooperatives in the United States from 1990 to 2019: An empirical analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hueth, Brent & Jang, Heesun, 2016. "Ownership, Pricing, and Productivity: Evidence from Electric Distribution Cooperatives," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 239254, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Zach Flynn, 2020. "Identifying productivity when it is a factor of production," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(2), pages 496-530, June.
    3. Heesun Jang, 2021. "Firm structure, scale economies, and productivity in the U.S. electric power industry: A cost function analysis," Energy & Environment, , vol. 32(5), pages 834-854, August.
    4. Bournakis, Ioannis & Tsionas, Mike G., 2023. "A Non-Parametric Estimation of Productivity with Idiosyncratic and Aggregate Shocks: The Role of Research and Development (R&D) and Corporate Tax," MPRA Paper 118100, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Umut Kılınç, 2018. "Assessing Productivity Gains from International Trade in a Small Open Economy," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 953-980, November.
    6. James B. Bushnell & Catherine Wolfram, 2009. "The Guy at the Controls: Labor Quality and Power Plant Efficiency," NBER Chapters, in: International Differences in the Business Practices and Productivity of Firms, pages 79-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Aguiar, Victor H. & Kashaev, Nail & Allen, Roy, 2023. "Prices, profits, proxies, and production," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 666-693.
    8. Dolores Añón Higón & Juan A. Máñez & Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis, 2018. "Intramural and external R&D: evidence for complementarity or substitutability," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(2), pages 555-577, August.
    9. Alvaro Garcia-Marin & Santiago Justel & Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr, 2019. "Trade Credit, Markups, and Relationships," CESifo Working Paper Series 7600, CESifo.
    10. D’Arcangelo, Filippo Maria & Pavan, Giulia & Calligaris, Sara, 2022. "The Impact of the European Carbon Market on Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Firms," FEEM Working Papers 324170, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    11. CHANG Pao-Li & MAKIOKA Ryo & NG Bo Lin & YANG Zhenlin, 2023. "Estimating Firm-level Production Functions with Spatial Dependence in Output, Input, and Productivity," Discussion papers 23016, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. Antonio Rodriguez-Lopez & Miaojie Yu, 2017. "All-Around Trade Liberalization and Firm-Level Employment: Theory and Evidence from China," CESifo Working Paper Series 6710, CESifo.
    13. Alvaro Garcia Marin & Nico Voigtländer, 2018. "Product-Level Efficiency and Core Competence in Multi-Product Plants," 2018 Meeting Papers 737, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Gibbon, Alexandra J. & Schain, Jan Philip, 2020. "Rising markups, common ownership, and technological capacities," DICE Discussion Papers 340, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    15. Jingfang Zhang & Emir Malikov, 2023. "Detecting Learning by Exporting and from Exporters," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Filippo Maria D’Arcangelo & Giulia Pavan & Sara Calligaris, 2022. "The Impact of the European Carbon Market on Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Firms," Working Papers 2022.24, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. Gidehag, Anton & Lodefalk, Magnus, 2016. "Recruiting for Small Business Growth: Micro-level Evidence," Working Papers 2016:6, Örebro University, School of Business.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/j27962rn8r5qgvg0f7t0vk5q is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Jan De Loecker & Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Amit K. Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik, 2016. "Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 445-510, March.
    20. Caselli, Mauro & Schiavo, Stefano & Nesta, Lionel, 2018. "Markups and markdowns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 104-107.
    21. Davide Castellani & Mariacristina Piva & Torben Schubert & Marco Vivarelli, 2018. "The source of the US /EU Productivity Gap:Less and less effective R&D," LEM Papers Series 2018/16, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:59:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-019-01658-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.