我刚才在哈佛商业评论上看见一篇文章，挺有意思的，简单给大家翻译一下大概意思，原文我贴在后面了[坏笑]。

就是说，大多数会计金融类的学生，在一开始都会学习一个概念“规模化效应”，也就是说，当一个公司规模越大，边际成本就会递减。

人们总认为，固定成本就是那么多，公司规模越大，固定成本就会摊开，这样边际成本就一定会递减。

这是经济学里面一个巨大的假设，很多公司融资，扩大规模都是基于这个假设: 只要VC爸爸给钱，养得公司规模够大，我们成本就会下降，就会实现盈利。

一个新的研究证明，这个假设不是现实。研究者收集了几个大的数据集，包含了上千个公司，他们发现，随着公司规模的扩大，成本是跟着线性增长的（也就是说，多数情况下不会出现边际成本递减）。

这个现象在多个行业都会出现，甚至在新兴行业中的快速增长的公司也是这样。

作者认为成本线性增长来源于几个方面：中介费用，成熟市场的竞争，资源限制等等。

原文: “The Long-Run Average Cost Puzzle,” by Aytekin Ertan, Stefan Lewellen, and Jacob K. Thomas (working paper)

----------------------
哈佛商业评论上的原文介绍
Efficiencies of Scale May Be a Myth
Every first-year accounting student learns this lesson: As a firm’s sales grow, its costs per unit should decrease, because fixed costs and overhead are spread across a larger number of units—a phenomenon known as efficiencies of scale. Countless business
plans and investment proposals hinge on this assumption and the corollary that profit margins will grow as sales increase. But are these assumptions an accounting fiction?

A new study suggests that’s the case. Researchers examined four large data sets—two involving U.S. companies, one involving European firms, and one that included global companies, amounting to thousands of firms in all—to learn how costs-to-sales ratios and profit margins changed as firms grew. They found that costs and profits rose in close proportion to sales increases, without the marginal improvement the accounting
theories predict. This happened across all industry sectors and even among young firms experiencing very rapid growth. The researchers posit a number of explanations, including agency costs, resource constraints, and increased competition as markets mature. They write, “Projections that routinely anticipate declining average costs are likely optimistic. Any scale efficiencies projected, especially if they are based on short-run marginal costs, deserve careful scrutiny to confirm that they are reasonable and supported by experience.”
#亿点曝光计划#