For most of the last century, firms in certain industries, especially public utility industries such as energy, transportation, and communications, have been public owned or regulated to alleviate public fears that such firms would use market power to raise prices artificially. Many of these industries exhibited scale economies, which meant that a single firm would have the lowest cost of production and could monopolize the industry. Hence, these industries were treated as natural monopolies and regulated to control entry, prices, and profits. The term working capital refers to short term funds required for financing the duration of the operating cycle in a business often known as "Accounting year". These funds are used for carrying out the routine or regular business operations consisting of purchase of raw materials, payment of direct and indirect expenses, carrying out of production, investment in stocks and stores and amount to be maintained in the form of cash. It represents funds with which business is carried on. It can also be regarded as that proportion of the company's total capital, which is employed in short term operations.