Are Combination Gas and Electric Utilities Multiproduct Natural Monopolies?
Gas and electric services are provided in some locations by a single firm, in others by two firms. The loss of competition inherent in single-firm provision can be justified by the presence of both economies of scope and product-specific economies of scale for each output in multiproduct production. The estimation of a multiproduct, hybrid, translog cost function shows no evidence of such economies at the mean combination utility output vector.