IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v15y2008i2p317-353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the origins of the concept of natural monopoly: Economies of scale and competition

Author

Listed:
  • Manuela Mosca

Abstract

The present article contributes to the history of the concept of natural monopoly, focusing on the reconstruction of its origins. The paper considers various facets of natural monopoly: the expression itself; the singling out of the concrete situations to which it is applied; the inquiry into economies of scale; the consideration of their incompatibility with perfect competition; the drawing of the diagram; and the need for government intervention. In this paper each of the above features is separately examined from a historical perspective. Priorities and influences are then traced, and in particular it is found that the pivotal figure in this historical reconstruction is that of Edgeworth. The relation of the concept of natural monopoly with that of competition is also highlighted, as well as its policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuela Mosca, 2008. "On the origins of the concept of natural monopoly: Economies of scale and competition," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 317-353.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:15:y:2008:i:2:p:317-353
    DOI: 10.1080/09672560802037623
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560802037623
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672560802037623?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226199993 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Rabah Amir, "undated". "Market Structure, Scale Economies and Industry Performance," CIE Discussion Papers 2000-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Industrial Economics.
    3. Cabral, Luis M. B., 2000. "Introduction to Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262032864, December.
    4. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    5. Brian J. Loasby, 1989. "The Mind and Method of the Economist," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 288, December.
    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. Dodge Alexander Steven & Rye Ståle A., 2024. "The resource-making state: liquefied natural gas production networks and state strategies for domestic market development in Indonesia," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 68(3-4), pages 226-242.
    2. Cherry, Barbara A., 2014. "Historical mutilation: How misuse of 'public utility and 'natural monopoly' misdirects US telecommunications policy development," 20th ITS Biennial Conference, Rio de Janeiro 2014: The Net and the Internet - Emerging Markets and Policies 106881, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    3. Neri Salvadori & Rodolfo Signorino, 2014. "Adam Smith on Monopoly Theory. Making good a lacuna," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(2), pages 178-195, May.
    4. Béraud, Alain, 2011. "Walras et l’économie publique," OEconomia, Editions NecPlus, vol. 2011(03), pages 351-392, September.
    5. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "Karl Marx´s Theory of Capitalism Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal," MPRA Paper 113685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Atif Ansar & Martin Pohlers, 2014. "Fluid populations, immobile assets: Synchronizing infrastructure investments with shifting demography," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 222-248, June.
    7. Gregory, Julian, 2020. "Governance, scale, scope: A review of six South African electricity generation infrastructure megaprojects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. Hercules Haralambides, 2017. "Globalization, public sector reform, and the role of ports in international supply chains," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 19(1), pages 1-51, March.
    9. Cherry, Barbara A., 2015. "Historical distortion: How misuse of "public utility and "natural monopoly" misdirects U.S. telecommunications policy development," 2015 Regional ITS Conference, Los Angeles 2015 146320, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    10. Poinsot, Philippe, 2016. "Jules Dupuit And The Railroads: What Is The Role Of The State?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 189-209, June.
    11. Satoła Łukasz, 2017. "Spatial Diversity of Municipal Capital Companies in Poland," Economic and Regional Studies / Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne, Sciendo, vol. 10(3), pages 32-41, September.
    12. Catherine Grandclément & Alain Nadaï, 2018. "Devising the consumer of the competitive electricity market: the mundane meter, the unbundling doctrine, and the re-bundling of choice," Post-Print halshs-03329331, HAL.
    13. Chechelski, Piotr & Grochowska, Renata & Łopaciuk, Wiesław & Ślązak, Emil & Wasilewski, Adam & Wigier, Marek, 2012. "Development est public policy support in the food economy – the example of Poland," Multiannual Program Reports 164845, Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI).
    14. Atif Ansar & Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2016. "Big is Fragile: An Attempt at Theorizing Scale," Papers 1603.01416, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2017.
    15. Aldo Montesano, 2024. "Pareto and pure economics: analyses subsequently accepted and others neglected," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 71(3), pages 537-552, September.
    16. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "La Teoría del Capitalismo de Karl Marx. Exposición, Crítica y Evaluación [Karl Marx's Theory of Capitalism. Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal]," MPRA Paper 105877, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. André de Palma & Julien Monardo, 2019. "Natural Monopoly in Transport," Working Papers hal-02121079, HAL.
    18. Kotsios, Panayotis, 2010. "Regulatory Barriers to Entry in Industrial Sectors," MPRA Paper 27976, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Ansari, Jugnu, 2012. "A New Measure of Competition in Indian Loan Market," MPRA Paper 50108, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Jugnu Ansari, 2013. "A new measure of competition in Indian loan markets," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 2(4), pages 60-77, October.
    3. Jean-Marc Siroën, 1993. "Marchés contestables, différenciation des produits et discrimination des prix," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 44(3), pages 569-592.
    4. Peter Kuhn, 1982. "Malfeasance in Long Term Employment Contracts: A New General Model with an Application to Unionism," NBER Working Papers 1045, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Shamsul Arifeen Khan Mamun, 2012. "Stochastic estimation of cost frontier: evidence from Bangladesh," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 211-227, May.
    6. Makoto Yano, 2005. "Coexistence of large firms and less efficient small firms under price competition with free entry," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 1(3), pages 167-188, September.
    7. Boone, J., 2004. "Balance of Power," Other publications TiSEM d3f8cd4b-eaf0-4c1c-aed4-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Benard, Jean, 1987. "Socialist incentive schemes and price planning," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 8735, CEPREMAP.
    9. Aslan, Hadiye & Kumar, Praveen, 2016. "The product market effects of hedge fund activism," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 226-248.
    10. Barrett, Sean D., 2004. "Bus Competition in Ireland - The Case for Market Forces," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2004(3-Autumn), pages 1-20.
    11. Milton Madison & James MacDonald & Michael Ollinger, 2000. "Technological Change and Economies of Scale in U.S. Poultry Slaughter," Working Papers 00-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    12. Dasgupta Utteeyo, 2011. "Are Entry Threats Always Credible?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-41, December.
    13. Boyan Jovanovic, 1993. "The Diversification of Production," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1 Microec), pages 197-247.
    14. Bottasso, Anna & Conti, Maurizio & Vannoni, Davide, 2019. "Scale and (quasi) scope economies in airport technology. An application to UK airports," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 150-164.
    15. Maria Lorek, 2013. "Des pôles de croissance vers des systèmes d’innovation territorialisés dans une « nouvelle » économie de marche : le cas de Gdansk, Pologne [The poles of growth and conversion of industrial territo," Working Papers 274, Laboratoire de Recherche sur l'Industrie et l'Innovation. ULCO / Research Unit on Industry and Innovation.
    16. Subhash C. Ray & Shilpa Sethia, 2022. "Nonparametric measurement of potential gains from mergers: an additive decomposition and application to Indian bank mergers," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 115-130, April.
    17. Shi, Guanming & Stiegert, Kyle & Chavas, Jean Paul, 2010. "An Analysis of Pricing in Horizontal and Vertical Markets: The Case of the Cottonseed Market," Working Papers 201439, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Food System Research Group.
    18. Thomaz Teodorovicz & Tainá Leandro & Luiz Alberto Esteves, 2016. "The Evolution Of A Methodology For Relevant Market Definition: An Analysis Of Cade'S Jurisprudence On Private Higher Educational Markets," Anais do XLII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 42nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 137, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    19. Boyan Jovanovic, 1998. "Michael Gort's Contribution to Economics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 327-337, April.
    20. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2016. "Sunk costs and the measurement of commercial property depreciation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 1340-1366, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:eujhet:v:15:y:2008:i:2:p:317-353. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    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.