IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kyo/wpaper/572.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inefficiency by a Non-Minimum Cost Function for Gas Distribution Industry in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Tatsuo Kinugasa

    (Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University and Department of Finance, University of MDS at Kobe)

Abstract

This paper presents estimates of the rate of scale economies and technical change in the gas distribution industry with rate of return regulation as firm level in Japan using a translog non-minimum cost function. The result bases on a sample of 9 privately owned firms for the period 1981-1995. Several results can be shown as follows. First, capital and energy are over-employed as input, while labor is under-employed as inputs. Second, increasing returns to scale does not exist. Third, technical progress of which degree is around 3%, is exist during the estimated period. Fourth, labor and energy input factors are not so responsive to change in thier own prices, while capital factor is responsive to change in its own price. Moreover, almost of all input ratios are not so sensitive to change in any given input price, except between labor or energy, and capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Tatsuo Kinugasa, 2003. "Inefficiency by a Non-Minimum Cost Function for Gas Distribution Industry in Japan," KIER Working Papers 572, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:kyo:wpaper:572
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Non-minimum cost function; Generalized cost funciton; Scale economies; Rate of return regulation; Natural gas industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • Q32 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development

    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:kyo:wpaper:572. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Makoto Watanabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iekyojp.html .

    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.