The late columnist william f. buckley, commenting on a strike by the teamsters union against ups in 1997, offered this bit of economic analysis to explain how ups had succeeded in reducing its average total cost: "ups had done this by economies of scale. up to a point (where the marginal cost equals the price of the marginal unit), the larger the business, the less the per-unit cost." use the concept of economies of scale, together with the information presented in this chapter, to explain the error in mr. buckley’s statement.