• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.21-42
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• 2008

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.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.665-680
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• 2016

Theoretically, it is said that economies of scope can be realized in the cropelivestock cycling organic farming. Thus, it is also used as the principle of organic farming. However, it is difficult to find the cases of the empirical analysis of it in Korea. In that sense, this study is meaningful in that it analyzed the agricultural data of case farms of obtaining the approval of both organic agricultural products and organic animal products and practicing cycling farming for 4 years and tested the hypothesis. This study measured economies of scope by using the actual measurement value and estimation value farming performance statistics for 4 years of case farms. This farmhouse conducted nutrient cycling in the farm like self-manufacturing and injecting organic agricultural byproduct and wild grass as organic livestock feed and fermenting organic livestock manure to organic compost to return it 100%. The results can be summarized as follows: According to the result of cycling farming of combining and producing organic agriculture and organic livestock, economies of scope were found to be realized in this case farmhouse. That is, although not strong, EOS>0, there were economies of scope. The measurement value appeared as 0.0722, 0.00378, 0.04667 and 0.13127 in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. It was improved as time passes and the scale gets smaller. Therefore, in order to further improve economies of scope, there should be measures of reducing duplication costs between agriculture-livestock as low as possible and lowering the production cost of organic feed. That is, there is a need for the management strategy to adjust the import function and cost function according to the change in management paradigm and cropping system.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.176-186
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to investigate the economies of scale and scope in the medical service industry of Korea using the multiple output translog cost function. The results show that the single-product scale economy (SSE) estimated is highly significant and less than one, implying that Korean medical service institutes are on average enjoying the product-specific scale economy in providing their services. In addition, the ray scale economies (RSE) reflects the overall economy of the scale in individual firm, showing less than one. Thus, the medical service industry in Korea is generally operating in the region of increasing returns to scale. The findings provide evidence of the economy of scope, in particular, with the joint production of inpatient and outpatient services as well as inpatient and administrative services.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.135-142
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• 2005

This study addresses the problem of flexible technology acquisition in a multi-product market when demands are uncertain. We confine the concept of flexibility to the ability of manufacturing system to produce a number of different types of products, called a product-mix flexibility type. And an analytical model in which the economies of scope are incorporated explicitly as a feature of flexible technology is presented to find the optimal investment decision to acquire flexible technology and optimal production planning. The characteristics of optimal investment strategy related to capacity and production planning are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.229-244
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• 2004

This study addresses the problem of flexible technology acquisition in multi-product market when demands are uncertain. We confine the concept of flexibility to the ability of manufacturing system to produce a number of different types of products, called product-mix flexibility type. And an analytical model in which economies of scope is incorporated explicitly as a feature of flexible technology is presented to find the optimal investment decision to acquire flexible technology and optimal production planning. The characteristics of optimal investment strategy related to capacity and production planning are discussed.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.133-146
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• 1995

WTO system has just begun and the development for fishing industry is being carried out. The task of National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives(NFFC ) is not only to support producers' competitive edge, but also to realize the efficiency embodied in the businesses of NFFC itself. Then it can continue to compete other firms and offer the comprehensive services only when it achieves its efficiency. The efficiency of NFFC is the economies of scale and scope. NFFC should achieve its scale and scope economies to be efficient. NFFC needs to expand its size in fish distribution and banking business to have scale economies. Also, the communication and coordination systems among member-supporting, fish distribution, and banking business need to be strengthened to get its scope economies. It is interesting theoretically and in policy making to test the hypotheses that cooperatives are capable of offering the comprehensive services such as distribution, credit, and insurance to the members. It is meaningful to their development for agricultural and small businesses cooperatives as well as fisheries cooperatives to survive the fierce competition under WTO system. National Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives(NFAC) is much greater in business size than NFFC. The estimation and test in the multiproduct cost function of NFAC will show interesting results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.159-173
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• 2004

Using a generalized translog multiproduct cost function model, this paper examines economies of scale and scope in the vertically-integrated Korean railway industry. The paper then conceptualizes that the Korea National Railroad (KNR) produces four outputs (passenger-kilometers, ton-kilometers of freight, average length of passenger trips, and average length of freight haul) using three input factors(labor, fuel and maintenance, and rolling stock and capital). Using time series data collected from the KNR's annual records for the years from 1977 to 2002, the simultaneous equation system consisting of a cost function and two input share equatins is estimated with the Zellner's iterative seemingly unrelated regression. The findings show that the cost function corresponding to a non-Cobb-Douglas, non-homothetic, and non-homogeneous production technology adequately represents the KNR's cost structure. On the other hand, the Korean railway industry experiences sizeable overall scale economies, which result from substantial product-specific scale economies associated with passenger-kilometers and freight ton-kilometers and from scope economies associated with their joint production. In addition, the magnitude of economies of scope is influenced largely by the ratio of passenger trips, and has increased over time as the former has increased while the latter has decreased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.89-102
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• 2001

Using a multiproduct translog cost function model, this paper examines the existence or absence of scale and scope economies in Seoul's urban bus industry. The Paper then conceptualizes that the bus firm produces three outputs (city, seat and local bus-kilometers) using low input factors(labor, capital, fuel and maintenance). Using 1996 annual observations for 81 Seoul's bus firms, the equation system consisting of a cost function and three input share equations is estimated with the nonlinear iterative Zellner method. The findings show that the cost function corresponding to a non-homothetic production technology with separability between local bus outputs and inputs adequately represents the structure of cost for Seoul's bus firms, and that the demand lot all input factors is quite inelastic with respect to their own price. On the other hand, nearly all firms experience mild overall economies or scale, but rather marked product-specific economies of scale with respect to all the three outputs. In addition, there appear to be substantial economies or scope associated with the joint production of city and seat bus services, while considerable diseconomies of scope associated with that of city and local bus services. These results indicate that the merger of smaller firms into larger firms with a fleet of approximately 200 buses would result in more cost-efficient bus services.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.317-322
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• 2022

Background: Limited access to medical services causes problems in patients' health and life. Also, hospital closures cause concentration towards general hospitals, which leads to worsening National Health Insurance finance. Therefore, hospital closure is an important topic to be analyzed. Methods: This paper analyzed the factors that affect hospital closures using survival analysis with the data of 970 hospitals opened between 2010 and 2019 in Korea. The number of medical personnel, hospital rooms, sickbeds, and medical departments were used as explanatory variables. Results: The number of medical personnel and hospital rooms increased the survival probability while the number of sickbeds and medical departments decrease the survival probability. Conclusion: The results suggest that hospitals have economies of scale and diseconomies of scope in management.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.57-72
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• 2018

Organic agriculture seeks sustainable agriculture. Organic agriculture is based on circulating agriculture of a family farm unit. However, as of the end of 2016, only 33 out of the total organic farming farms were implementing Crop-Livestock cycling organic farming. The reason seems to be a matter of income after all. The optimal size combination refers to the scale by which family farms can maintain their quality of life while engaging in farming activities. In other words. it is a farm scale that maintains optimal income through stable labor costs. In the meantime, there has been no previous study on the optimal economical combination of Crop-Livestock cycling farming. Choi (2016) analyzed whether the economies of scope (EOS) were realized in the combined production by using the management data of the farmers who practiced Crop-Livestock cycling organic farming for four years. As a result, it has been revealed that the EOS measurement value is 0 or more so the economies of scope are being realized. Therefore, the purpose of this empirical analysis is to identify farm incomes under this circumstance. It is assumed that the optimum production is achieved by balancing the total income curve and the total cost curve in the optimal scale production range. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the income after the conversion to Crop-Livestock cycling farming was 44,789,280 won, the sum of the seedling-livestock sector, which was 17,873,120 won higher when the non-Crop-Livestock cycling farming was assumed. The same is true for 2014 and 2015. The reason for this is that pig droppings were composted from organic seedlings, and the cost of selling pork was 150,000 won/per pig more expensive even though the manufacturing cost of organic feeds was higher than the purchasing cost. Secondly, this study simulated the result that the economic index varies when the farm size combination is changed by the farm size of 100% standard (S100) as of 2014. S130 is the increase in size from 100% of 2014, whereas S30 is the result of 3ha crop and 66 livestock (pigs). As a result of this simulation, Crop-Livestock cycling farming income decreased more than non-Crop-Livestock cycling farming as the farm size decreased, whereas the income decreased as the farm size increased. When the size was reduced below S50, the income tended to decrease. In this situation, EOS changed in the same direction. The results showed that when the farming size was reorganized and reduced to 50% compared to 2014, the income and income difference was the highest. At the same time, economies of scope (EOS) were the highest at 0.12985. In other words, it was found that the income of farm houses in a family farm unit sector was the best in the combination of 1.5ha crop agriculture and 110 livestock (pigs).