IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v28y2010i6p645-656.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do mergers improve efficiency? Evidence from restructuring the US electric power sector

Author

Listed:
  • Kwoka, John
  • Pollitt, Michael

Abstract

This paper analyses the performance impact of the merger wave which took place in the US electricity industry during the period 1994-2003. It does so by analyzing the impact on operating and total cost in electricity distribution. While there are past studies of efficiency and productivity effects, as well as of prices, profits, and other outcomes, this study differs in several ways. First, the database consists of many merging and non-merging firms, rather than only a few on which to base inferences. Second, all of these mergers arise in a single industry, greatly facilitating controlled comparison. Third, we have data on the several years of pre-merger and post-merger efficiency of the specific merging units, unlike virtually all past studies. Finally, we employ a powerful nonparametric technique--data envelopment analysis--to measure the efficiency of each operating unit. The results indicate that electricity mergers are not consistent with improved cost performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwoka, John & Pollitt, Michael, 2010. "Do mergers improve efficiency? Evidence from restructuring the US electric power sector," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 645-656, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:28:y:2010:i:6:p:645-656
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-7187(10)00033-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Raymond S. Hartman, 1996. "Predicting The Efficiency Effects Of Mergers," Journal of Forensic Economics, National Association of Forensic Economics, vol. 9(3), pages 295-323, September.
    2. Gugler, Klaus & Mueller, Dennis C. & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin & Zulehner, Christine, 2003. "The effects of mergers: an international comparison," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 625-653, May.
    3. Anderson, James Earl, 1999. "Making Operational Sense of Mergers and Acquisitions," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 12(7), pages 49-59, August.
    4. Magali Delmas & Yesim Tokat, 2005. "Deregulation, governance structures, and efficiency: the U.S. electric utility sector," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 441-460, May.
    5. Tim Coelli & Antonio Estache & Sergio Perelman & Lourdes Trujillo, 2003. "A Primer on Efficiency Measurement for Utilities and Transport Regulators," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15149.
    6. Kaserman, David L & Mayo, John W, 1991. "The Measurement of Vertical Economies and the Efficient Structure of the Electric Utility Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 483-502, September.
    7. Kwoka, John E., 2002. "Vertical economies in electric power: evidence on integration and its alternatives," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 653-671, May.
    8. Berry, S Keith, 2000. "Excess Returns in Electric Utility Mergers during Transition to Competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 175-188, September.
    9. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    10. Gregor Andrade & Mark Mitchell & Erik Stafford, 2001. "New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 103-120, Spring.
    11. Yun Zhang & Robert Bartels, 1998. "The Effect of Sample Size on the Mean Efficiency in DEA with an Application to Electricity Distribution in Australia, Sweden and New Zealand," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 187-204, March.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    13. Ray, Dennis J & Thompson, Howard E, 1990. ""Fifty in Five": The Prospects for Merger in the Electric Utility Industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 111-128, June.
    14. Kira R. Fabrizio & Nancy L. Rose & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2007. "Do Markets Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on US Electric Generation Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1250-1277, September.
    15. Fare, R. & Grosskopf, S. & Logan, J., 1985. "The relative performance of publicly-owned and privately-owned electric utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 89-106, February.
    16. Preetum Domah & Michael G. Pollitt, 2001. "The restructuring and privatisation of the electricity distribution and supply businesses in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 107-146, March.
    17. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    18. Gilsdorf, Keith, 1994. "Vertical integration efficiencies and electric utilities: A cost complementarity perspective," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 261-282.
    19. John Becker-Blease & Lawrence Goldberg & Fred Kaen, 2008. "Mergers and acquisitions as a response to the deregulation of the electric power industry: value creation or value destruction?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 21-53, February.
    20. Leggio, Karyl B & Lien, Donald, 2000. "Mergers in the Electric Utility Industry in a Deregulatory Environment," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 69-85, January.
    21. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2003. "International benchmarking and regulation: an application to European electricity distribution utilities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(15), pages 1609-1622, December.
    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. Monastyrenko, Evgenii, 2017. "Eco-efficiency outcomes of mergers and acquisitions in the European electricity industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 258-277.
    2. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2016:i:169 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John Kwoka & Michael Pollitt & Sanem Sergici, 2010. "Divestiture policy and operating efficiency in U.S. electric power distribution," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 86-109, August.
    4. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    5. Ralph Sonenshine, 2016. "Effect of Utility Deregulation and Mergers on Consumer Welfare," Working Papers 2016-08, American University, Department of Economics.
    6. Triebs, T.P. & Pollitt, M.G. & Kwoka, J.E., 2010. "The Direct Costs and Benefits of US Electric Utility Divestitures," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1049, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. Andor, Mark A. & Parmeter, Christopher & Sommer, Stephan, 2019. "Combining uncertainty with uncertainty to get certainty? Efficiency analysis for regulation purposes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 240-252.
    8. Jindal, Abhinav & Nilakantan, Rahul, 2021. "Falling efficiency levels of Indian coal-fired power plants: A slacks-based analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    9. Teti, Emanuele & Tului, Stefano, 2020. "Do mergers and acquisitions create shareholder value in the infrastructure and utility sectors? Analysis of market perceptions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    10. Thomas P. Triebs & David S. Saal & Pablo Arocena & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2016. "Estimating economies of scale and scope with flexible technology," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 173-186, April.
    11. Massimiliano Piacenza & Davide Vannoni, 2009. "Vertical And Horizontal Economies In The Electric Utility Industry: An Integrated Approach," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(3), pages 431-450, September.
    12. Núñez, F. & Arcos-Vargas, A. & Villa, G., 2020. "Efficiency benchmarking and remuneration of Spanish electricity distribution companies," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Aude Le Lannier & Simon Porcher, 2014. "Efficiency in the public and private French water utilities: prospects for benchmarking," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(5), pages 556-572, February.
    14. Asimakopoulos, Grigorios & Whalley, Jason, 2017. "Market leadership, technological progress and relative performance in the mobile telecommunications industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 57-67.
    15. Arcos-Vargas, A. & Núñez-Hernández, F. & Villa-Caro, Gabriel, 2017. "A DEA analysis of electricity distribution in Spain: An industrial policy recommendation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 583-592.
    16. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    17. Lee, Boon L. & Wilson, Clevo & Simshauser, Paul & Majiwa, Eucabeth, 2021. "Deregulation, efficiency and policy determination: An analysis of Australia's electricity distribution sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    18. Stefan Seifert & Astrid Cullmann & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2014. "Technical Efficiency and CO2 Reduction Potentials: An Analysis of the German Electricity Generating Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1426, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Hellwig, Michael & Schober, Dominik & Cabral, Luís, 2020. "Low-powered vs high-powered incentives: Evidence from German electricity networks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    20. Michael G. Pollitt & Jafar Sadeghi & Thomas P. Triebs, 2024. "The Effects of Vertical Separation and Competition: Evidence from US Electric Utility Restructuring," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 65(2), pages 531-559, September.
    21. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2011. "Operational synergy in the US electric utility industry under an influence of deregulation policy: A linkage to financial performance and corporate value," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 699-713, February.

    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:indorg:v:28:y:2010:i:6:p:645-656. 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/inca/505551 .

    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.