Economies of scale: A survey of the empirical literature

Karsten Junius

No 813, Kiel Working Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)

Abstract: If firms were animals rather than economic entities, a behavioral scientist trying to describe their traits would observe that firms tend to be found in herds and usually migrate towards the biggest watering holes. This paper surveys the literature on the questions why firms grow stronger with size, why they are found in herds, and what the effects are of meeting other herds around the watering holes. In economist-speak, I review the empirical literature on internal and external economies of scale. Internal scale economies arise on the level of a single firm. External scale economies arise on the level of an industry or a region. For each type of scale economies, I consider static and dynamic effects.

Keywords: Economies of Scale; Empirical Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/46809/1/257982418.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:813

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Kiel Working Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().