A cost analysis of producing vaccines in developing countries

Emerging markets & emerging needs: Developing countries vaccine manufacturers' perspective & its current status

Sustainable vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-Income countries

Developing-country vaccine manufacturers’ technical capabilities can make a difference in global immunization

Economies of Scale and Scope in the European Banking Sector 2002-2011

This study investigates economies of scale, cost complementarity and economies of scope for healthcare organizations using econometric approaches. The economies of scale appear to exist in each service provided by a hospital such as inpatient treatment services, outpatient treatment services, and other patient treatment services, respectively. When we test all services in aggregate level, it also indicates that the healthcare industry on average exhibits the economies of scale of 6 percent, which implies that scaling up hospital sizes will bring substantial cost savings to them Evidence shows that cost complementarity exists between outpatient services and other services for patients and, i.e., these other services for patients experience the reduction in marginal costs as the outputs of the outpatient services increase. For the economies of scope, they are present in most service areas; aggregate level services, outpatient services, and other services for patients, respectively. Inpatient treatment services, however, do not show any evidence of the economies of scope. Results show that the economies of scope are achieved by the general hospital type that provides all service areas such as inpatient treatments, outpatient treatments, and other services for patients. The existence of the economies of scope provides the rationale for extending the existing line of business in a hospital into more diverse areas of services where its benefit comes in the form of cost savings. In sum, it overall provides evidence that the M&As in this industry are encouraged to achieve cost reductions from the economies of scale and scope by changing the size and the output mix.

Economies of scale are evident when a firm's average costs decline while its output expands, as when an advertising agency raises its gross income by serving more accounts and/or larger accounts. Economies of scope appear when cost savings can be realized by a single agency producing several products jointly, as compared to many agencies each producing them separately. How important are economies of scale and scope in advertising agency operations? In this paper cost models are formulated which represent how the principal component of agency costs, employment level, varies according to the mix of media and services an agency provides and the total volume of advertising it produces. These models are estimated and tested cross-sectionally utilizing data pertaining to the domestic operations of 401 U.S. agencies for 1987. The empirical evidence reported here indicates that both scale and particularly scope economies are highly significant in the operations of U.S. advertising agencies. We find that of the 12,000 establishments comprising the industry in 1987, approximately 200–250 had domestic gross incomes of $3–4 million or more (or equivalently, billings of $20–27 million) and therefore had service mixes and operating levels sufficiently large to take full advantage of all available size-related efficiencies. Furthermore, the overall structure of the industry is one where these large, fully efficient firms created and produced more than half of all the national advertising utilized in the U.S. during 1987. At the same time, vast numbers of very small agencies appear to operate with substantial cost disadvantages compared to large firms as a consequence of these scale and scope economies. These findings carry important implications concerning possible future changes in the industry structure. It seems highly doubtful that scale economies could motivate further mergers among the largest 200–250 agencies. On the other hand, for small agencies, mergers and acquisitions might be attractive as means of mitigating their size-related cost disadvantages. Finally, our findings demonstrating the existence of scale and scope economies are consistent with the diminishing reliance on fixed rates of media commissions as the principal basis of agency compensation. They also cast strong doubts on size-related economies in operating costs as a viable explanation for the limited degree of vertical integration of agency services by large advertisers.

Environmental advocacy is a large and growing activity. Whilst a number of economists have analysed the advocacy process, no systematic attempt has been made to understand the factors influencing the organisation of the sector. We explore the relationship between economies of scale and scope in advocacy. Under the most popular specification of a Tullock-type contest, economies of scope arise when (and only when) the scale of that activity is sufficiently large. The incentives for merger are socially efficient, implying no need for policy intervention.

This paper estimates economies of scale and scope for 36 Australian universities using a multiple-input, multiple-output cost function over the period 1998–2006. The three inputs included in the analysis are full-time equivalent academic and non-academic staff and physical capital. The five outputs are undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD completions, national competitive and industry grants, and publications. The findings indicate that ray economies of scale hold up to about 120% of current mean output though product-specific economies of scale hold only for undergraduate teaching. Global economies of scope prevail in the sector, increasing with the level of mean output, while product-specific economies of scope arise for all outputs except publications. A cost efficiency index constructed using the sector benchmark indicates that the universities of Ballarat, Southern Cross and Flinders have a high level of cost efficiency, while New South Wales, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and James Cook are cost inefficient.

This study estimates a multiproduct translog cost function for the entire population of 1011 Flemish secondary schools in order to determine the degree of ray and product specific (dis)economies of scale as well as the degree of (dis)economies of scope. Three types of schools and seven major study fields can be distinguished. Student loads in these study fields are used as outputs produced by the schools. Evidence is found for ray economies of scale for the three types of schools, even at output levels of 300% of the actual means. Although the cost elasticities of six out of seven outputs are close to zero, most of the values indicating the degree of product specific economies of scale are negative (suggesting diseconomies of scale). However, this can be explained by the considerable scope effects which are incorporated in the definition of the product specific economies of scale.

The sufficiency of product and variable costs for production-related decisions when economies of scope are present

This paper employs a composite cost function to examine the cost structure of Australian telephone services. The composite cost model combines the log-quadratic input price structure of the translog model with a quadratic structure for multiple outputs. Quadratic output structures permit the measurement of economies of scale, economies of scope, and subadditivity without prejudging their presence. Model estimates, on Telstra system data from 1926 to 1991, show that the production of Australian telephone services exhibits economies of scope but no ray economies of scale.

Reviews the literature on economies of scale and scope in savings and loan institutions and uses 1980‐1987 US data to explore the cost effects of simultaneous production of outputs (mortgage loans, other loans and deposits), the impact of size and product‐specific economies of scale. Includes interest as a non‐operating cost and divides the sample into four groups based on asset values. Shows that total costs rose faster than assets, deposits or loans over the period; that there are product‐specific diseconomies of scale for deposits and loans‐ and that economies of scope were made by the larger firms following deregulation.

Economies of scale and scope in Australian urban water utilities

Data Access, Consumer Interests and Social Welfare: An Economic Perspective

The evidence about the magnitude of scope and scale economies in U.S. cash grain farming is revealed from the empirical estimation of the flexible fixed cost quadratic (FFCQ) model. This framework explicitly disaggregates the crop output vector to take the heterogeneity of output and gives insight to farmers to answer interesting questions such as: Are three-crop farms more cost efficient than twocrop or single-crop farms? How important are economies of scope (fixed-cost and variable-cost components) in two-crop farms and three-crop farms? Two-crop farms as well as three-crop farms exhibit overall economies of scale and scope in all four-size categories that increase with the farm size. They are able to lower the cost of producing crops in the same farm by spreading fixed costs over two or three crops and/or by exploiting product cost complementarity, or diversifying risks.