IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v320y2025i1p188-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Endogenous system-wide output prices in incentive regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Afsharian, Mohsen
  • Ahn, Heinz
  • Bogetoft, Peter
  • Kamali, Sara
  • Lopes-Ahn, Ana

Abstract

We propose a simplification of frontier-based regulation currently implemented in several countries and demonstrate its potential application to the regulation of the Brazilian electricity transmission sector. A common regulation uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate a cost function and mandates that firms adjust their costs to the DEA-estimated best-practice costs. Nevertheless, as DEA allows for individualized pricing of the services, such a DEA-based regulation may be challenging to understand and predict. Moreover, it may encourage strategic behavior in the selection of service profiles, thereby reducing competitive pressure on other firms with similar profiles. This could adversely affect the industry structure, leading to firms with suboptimal scales and scope. Therefore, instead of individualized output prices, we propose the use of a common set of endogenously determined prices that minimizes the total costs to end consumers, while ensuring individual rationality and incentive compatibility. We also present an extended approach that enables the regulator to strike a balance between rewarding well-performing agents and encouraging underperforming agents to save costs, while maintaining a minimal deviation from an expected aggregated payment. Achieving this balance is vital for incentivizing the agents to innovate and invest in more sustainable facilities in the electricity sector, promoting advancements in technology, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Using Brazilian data, we demonstrate that the proposed incentive mechanism is operational and offers substantial advantages over the existing regulatory framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Bogetoft, Peter & Kamali, Sara & Lopes-Ahn, Ana, 2025. "Endogenous system-wide output prices in incentive regulation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 320(1), pages 188-204.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:320:y:2025:i:1:p:188-204
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2024.05.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221724003424
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2024.05.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cooper, William W. & Ruiz, Jose L. & Sirvent, Inmaculada, 2007. "Choosing weights from alternative optimal solutions of dual multiplier models in DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 443-458, July.
    2. Agrell, Per J. & Bogetoft, Peter, 2017. "Regulatory Benchmarking: Models, Analyses and Applications," Data Envelopment Analysis Journal, now publishers, vol. 3(1-2), pages 49-91, November.
    3. Hawdon, David, 2003. "Efficiency, performance and regulation of the international gas industry--a bootstrap DEA approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1167-1178, September.
    4. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael & Triebs, Thomas, 2008. "Productivity and efficiency of US gas transmission companies: A European regulatory perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3398-3412, September.
    5. PER AGRELL & Peter Bogetoft & Jørgen Tind, 2005. "DEA and Dynamic Yardstick Competition in Scandinavian Electricity Distribution," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 173-201, May.
    6. Peter Bogetoft & Henrik Ballebye Olesen, 2002. "Ten rules of thumb in contract design: lessons from Danish agriculture," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 29(2), pages 185-204, June.
    7. V V Podinovski, 2004. "Production trade-offs and weight restrictions in data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(12), pages 1311-1322, December.
    8. Forsund, Finn R & Hjalmarsson, Lennart, 1979. "Generalised Farrell Measures of Efficiency: An Application to Milk Processing in Swedish Dairy Plants," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(354), pages 294-315, June.
    9. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    10. Haney, Aoife Brophy & Pollitt, Michael G., 2009. "Efficiency analysis of energy networks: An international survey of regulators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5814-5830, December.
    11. Kapelko, Magdalena & Oude Lansink, Alfons & Zofío, José L., 2022. "Endogenous dynamic inefficiency and optimal resource allocation: An application to the European Dietetic Food Industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(3), pages 1444-1457.
    12. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Using Cost Observation to Regulate Firms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 614-641, June.
    13. Mohsen Afsharian & Heinz Ahn & Emmanuel Thanassoulis, 2024. "Incentivizing centrally regulated units to improve performance: Pitfalls and requirements," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(2), pages 395-409, February.
    14. Afsharian, Mohsen & Bogetoft, Peter, 2020. "Identifying production units with outstanding performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(3), pages 1191-1194.
    15. Victor Podinovski & Emmanuel Thanassoulis, 2007. "Improving discrimination in data envelopment analysis: some practical suggestions," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 117-126, October.
    16. Bovera, Filippo & Delfanti, Maurizio & Fumagalli, Elena & Lo Schiavo, Luca & Vailati, Riccardo, 2021. "Regulating electricity distribution networks under technological and demand uncertainty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    17. Tsionas, Mike G. & Malikov, Emir & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2020. "Endogenous dynamic efficiency in the intertemporal optimization models of firm behavior," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(1), pages 313-324.
    18. Jose Zofio & Jesus Pastor & Juan Aparicio, 2013. "The directional profit efficiency measure: on why profit inefficiency is either technical or allocative," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 257-266, December.
    19. Cecilio Mar-Molinero & Diego Prior & Maria-Manuela Segovia & Fabiola Portillo, 2014. "On centralized resource utilization and its reallocation by using DEA," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 221(1), pages 273-283, October.
    20. Lei Fang, 2020. "An incentive approach based on data envelopment analysis for intra-organization yardstick competition," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(1), pages 153-160, January.
    21. Ylvinger, Svante, 2000. "Industry performance and structural efficiency measures: Solutions to problems in firm models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 164-174, February.
    22. V V Podinovski, 2007. "Improving data envelopment analysis by the use of production trade-offs," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(10), pages 1261-1270, October.
    23. Cook, Wade D. & Zhu, Joe, 2007. "Within-group common weights in DEA: An analysis of power plant efficiency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(1), pages 207-216, April.
    24. Asmild, Mette & Paradi, Joseph C. & Pastor, Jesus T., 2009. "Centralized resource allocation BCC models," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 40-49, February.
    25. Menghan Chen & Sheng Ang & Lijing Jiang & Feng Yang, 2020. "Centralized resource allocation based on cross-evaluation considering organizational objective and individual preferences," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 42(2), pages 529-565, June.
    26. Peter Bogetoft, 2000. "DEA and Activity Planning under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 7-48, January.
    27. Peter Bogetoft & Kristoffer Boye & Henrik Neergaard-Petersen & Kurt Nielsen, 2007. "Reallocating sugar beet contracts: can sugar production survive in Denmark?," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 34(1), pages 1-20, March.
    28. Andrei Shleifer, 1985. "A Theory of Yardstick Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 319-327, Autumn.
    29. Bogetoft, Peter & Fare, Rolf & Obel, Borge, 2006. "Allocative efficiency of technically inefficient production units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(2), pages 450-462, January.
    30. Afsharian, Mohsen & Bogetoft, Peter, 2023. "Limiting flexibility in nonparametric efficiency evaluations: An ex post k-centroid clustering approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(2), pages 633-647.
    31. Mohsen Afsharian, 2020. "A metafrontier-based yardstick competition mechanism for incentivising units in centrally managed multi-group organisations," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 681-700, May.
    32. Peter Bogetoft, 1997. "DEA-based yardstick competition: The optimality of best practice regulation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 73(0), pages 277-298, October.
    33. Sebastián Lozano & Gabriel Villa, 2004. "Centralized Resource Allocation Using Data Envelopment Analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 143-161, July.
    34. da Silva, Aline Veronese & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Lopes, Ana Lúcia Miranda & do Carmo, Gabriela Miranda, 2019. "A close look at second stage data envelopment analysis using compound error models and the Tobit model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 111-126.
    35. Jesper Levring Andersen & Peter Bogetoft, 2007. "Gains from quota trade: theoretical models and an application to the Danish fishery," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 34(1), pages 105-127, March.
    36. Jesse D. Jenkins & Ignacio J. Pérez-Arriaga, 2017. "Improved Regulatory Approaches for the Remuneration of Electricity Distribution Utilities with High Penetrations of Distributed Energy Resources," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    37. Mostafa Davtalab-Olyaie & Hadis Mahmudi-Baram & Masoud Asgharian, 2022. "Incentivizing units in centralized systems: A slacks-based approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(8), pages 1724-1741, August.
    38. Mohsen Afsharian, 2021. "A frontier-based facility location problem with a centralised view of measuring the performance of the network," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(5), pages 1058-1074, May.
    39. Dai, Qianzhi & Li, Yongjun & Lei, Xiyang & Wu, Dengsheng, 2021. "A DEA-based incentive approach for allocating common revenues or fixed costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(2), pages 675-686.
    40. Heesche, Emil & Asmild, Mette, 2022. "Incorporating quality in economic regulatory benchmarking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    41. Pastor, JoseManuel & Perez, Francisco & Quesada, Javier, 1997. "Efficiency analysis in banking firms: An international comparison," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 395-407, April.
    42. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Xiong, Beibei & Chen, Xiaohong, 2022. "Frontier-based incentive mechanisms for allocating common revenues or fixed costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 294-308.
    43. Thompson, Russell G. & Langemeier, Larry N. & Lee, Chih-Tah & Lee, Euntaik & Thrall, Robert M., 1990. "The role of multiplier bounds in efficiency analysis with application to Kansas farming," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 93-108.
    44. Jesse D. Jenkins & Ignacio J. Perez-Arriaga, 2017. "Improved Regulatory Approaches for the Remuneration of Electricity Distribution Utilities with High Penetrations of Distributed Energy Resources," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(3), pages 63-92, May.
    45. C Kao & H-T Hung, 2005. "Data envelopment analysis with common weights: the compromise solution approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(10), pages 1196-1203, October.
    46. da Silva, Aline Veronese & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Ahn, Heinz & Lopes, Ana Lúcia Miranda, 2019. "Performance benchmarking models for electricity transmission regulation: Caveats concerning the Brazilian case," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-1.
    47. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Harms, Sören Guntram, 2021. "A review of DEA approaches applying a common set of weights: The perspective of centralized management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(1), pages 3-15.
    48. Peter Bogetoft & Lars Otto, 2011. "Benchmarking with DEA, SFA, and R," International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Springer, number 978-1-4419-7961-2.
    49. HATAMI-MARBINI, Adel & TAVANA, Madjid & AGRELL, Per J & HOSSEINZADEH LOTFI, Farhad, 2015. "A common-weights DEA model for centralized resource reduction and target setting," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2642, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    50. Agrell, Per J. & Bogetoft, Peter & Tind, Jorgen, 2002. "Incentive plans for productive efficiency, innovation and learning," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 1-11, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davtalab-Olyaie, Mostafa & Begen, Mehmet A. & Yang, Zijiang & Asgharian, Masoud, 2024. "Incentivization in centrally managed systems: Inconsistencies resolution," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2019. "A frontier-based system of incentives for units in organisations with varying degrees of decentralisation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(1), pages 224-237.
    3. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2017. "A DEA-based incentives system for centrally managed multi-unit organisations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(2), pages 587-598.
    4. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Harms, Sören Guntram, 2021. "A review of DEA approaches applying a common set of weights: The perspective of centralized management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(1), pages 3-15.
    5. Afsharian, Mohsen & Bogetoft, Peter, 2023. "Limiting flexibility in nonparametric efficiency evaluations: An ex post k-centroid clustering approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(2), pages 633-647.
    6. Afsharian, Mohsen & Bogetoft, Peter, 2020. "Identifying production units with outstanding performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(3), pages 1191-1194.
    7. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Chen, Xiaohong, 2023. "Nested frontier-based best practice regulation under asymmetric information in a principal–agent framework," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(1), pages 269-285.
    8. Mohsen Afsharian, 2020. "A metafrontier-based yardstick competition mechanism for incentivising units in centrally managed multi-group organisations," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 681-700, May.
    9. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Harms, Sören Guntram, 2019. "Performance comparison of management groups under centralised management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(3), pages 845-854.
    10. Afsharian, Mohsen & Kamali, Sara & Ahn, Heinz & Bogetoft, Peter, 2024. "Individualized second stage corrections in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 317(2), pages 563-577.
    11. Waidelich, Paul & Haug, Tomas & Wieshammer, Lorenz, 2022. "German efficiency gone wrong: Unintended incentives arising from the gas TSOs’ benchmarking," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    12. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Xiong, Beibei & Chen, Xiaohong, 2022. "Frontier-based incentive mechanisms for allocating common revenues or fixed costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 294-308.
    13. Varmaz, Armin & Varwig, Andreas & Poddig, Thorsten, 2013. "Centralized resource planning and Yardstick competition," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 112-118.
    14. Agrell, Per J. & Brea-Solís, Humberto, 2017. "Capturing heterogeneity in electricity distribution operations: A critical review of latent class modelling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 361-372.
    15. Bogetoft, Peter & Eskesen, Anita, 2022. "Balancing information rents and service differentiation in utility regulation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    16. Agrell, Per J. & Niknazar, Pooria, 2014. "Structural and behavioral robustness in applied best-practice regulation," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 89-103.
    17. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Xiong, Beibei, 2021. "Benchmarking with data envelopment analysis: An agency perspective," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. Fang, Lei & Li, Hecheng, 2013. "A comment on “solving the puzzles of structural efficiency”," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 230(2), pages 444-446.
    19. Heinz Ahn & Peter Bogetoft & Ana Lopes, 2019. "Measuring potential sub-unit efficiency to counter the aggregation bias in benchmarking," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 53-77, February.
    20. Blázquez-Gómez, Leticia & Grifell-Tatjé, Emili, 2011. "Evaluating the regulator: Winners and losers in the regulation of Spanish electricity distribution," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 807-815, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:320:y:2025:i:1:p:188-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.