Service Quality and Motor Carrier Costs: An Empirical Analysis
利用从货主收集的服务质量数据，估计了包含服务质量变量的成本函数，发现忽略服务质量会低估规模经济，大公司能以更低成本提供更高质量服务。
This paper overcomes the long-standing problem of measuring motor carriers' service quality by utilizing service quality data collected from shippers. A service quality controlled cost function is estimated for a sample of less-than-truckload motor carriers. It is shown that excluding service quality variables from cost estimation significantly underestimates carriers' scale economies. These scale economies enable large carriers to offer higher quality services at competitive or even lower costs than small carriers. Copyright 1995 by MIT Press.