IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/nzecpp/v58y2024i3p299-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scale efficiency gains in utilities? The case of electricity distribution in New Zealand

Author

Listed:
  • Tom Stannard
  • Philip Barry

Abstract

Merger, acquisition and restructuring activity has long been conducted by public and private entities to minimise cost through increased scale of business operations. Past literature is mixed on the realised gains from this activity. Utilising a dataset of New Zealand-based regulated electricity distribution businesses we find limited potential gain from unit cost reduction purely through increasing scale. Instead, we find that potential benefits come from increasing the population density of service. This is important and often overlooked in policy conversations, particularly in relation to infrastructure activities operating highly capital-intensive businesses.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Stannard & Philip Barry, 2024. "Scale efficiency gains in utilities? The case of electricity distribution in New Zealand," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 299-308, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:nzecpp:v:58:y:2024:i:3:p:299-308
    DOI: 10.1080/00779954.2024.2351849
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00779954.2024.2351849
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00779954.2024.2351849?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.

    More about this item

    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:nzecpp:v:58:y:2024:i:3:p:299-308. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RNZP20 .

    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.