A Composite Cost Function for Multiproduct Firms with an Application to Economies of Scope in Banking.

The composite cost function the authors propose combines a quadratic output structure with a log-quadratic input price structure and is well suited for examining economies of scope, subadditivity, and other important properties of multiproduct firms. To compare the composite model with an appropriate set of alternative functional forms, they develop a parsimonious--but general--specification that nests the standard translog cost function, the generalized translog cost function, a separable quadratic cost function, and the composite cost function. An application to economies of scope in banking confirms the advantages of the composite model. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.