IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v79y2022ics0038012121001415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sanitation and water services: Who is the most efficient provider public or private? Evidences for Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • de Souza Pereira, Mariana
  • Magalhães Filho, Fernando Jorge Corrêa
  • de Morais Lima, Priscila
  • Tabak, Benjamin Miranda
  • Constantino, Michel

Abstract

The present study analyzes water supply and sewage services in the 95 largest Brazilian cities, using two techniques for analyzing the efficiency boundaries, DEA and SFA. We estimate the efficiency score between the years 2013–2018. The results show that private providers are more efficient than public providers in the water supply service. For the sewage service, we do not find significant differences between public and private providers. The results demonstrate an increase in the sanitary sewage service scores and some declines throughout the analysis, revealing an attempt to increase efficiency in the sewage sector. In the water supply sector, we do not observe an improvement in efficiency. The study suggests the absence of incentives for higher efficiency, requiring the creation of instruments that promote better performance through these services’ regulatory structures.

Suggested Citation

  • de Souza Pereira, Mariana & Magalhães Filho, Fernando Jorge Corrêa & de Morais Lima, Priscila & Tabak, Benjamin Miranda & Constantino, Michel, 2022. "Sanitation and water services: Who is the most efficient provider public or private? Evidences for Brazil," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:79:y:2022:i:c:s0038012121001415
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2021.101149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012121001415
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2021.101149?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. 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.
    2. Antonio Estache & MartÌn A. Rossi, 2002. "How Different Is the Efficiency of Public and Private Water Companies in Asia?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(1), pages 139-148, June.
    3. Emrouznejad, Ali & Yang, Guo-liang, 2018. "A survey and analysis of the first 40 years of scholarly literature in DEA: 1978–2016," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 4-8.
    4. David Saal & David Parker & Tom Weyman-Jones, 2007. "Determining the contribution of technical change, efficiency change and scale change to productivity growth in the privatized English and Welsh water and sewerage industry: 1985–2000," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 127-139, October.
    5. Marta Suárez-Varela & María los Ángeles García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J Picazo-Tadeo, 2017. "Ownership and Performance in Water Services Revisited: Does Private Management Really Outperform Public?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(8), pages 2355-2373, June.
    6. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 1993. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency: Techniques and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072181.
    7. Estache, Antonio & Perelman, Sergio & Trujillo, Lourdes, 2005. "Infrastructure performance and reform in developing and transition economies: evidence from a survey of productivity measures," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3514, The World Bank.
    8. Molinos-Senante, María & Donoso, Guillermo & Sala-Garrido, Ramon, 2016. "Assessing the efficiency of Chilean water and sewerage companies accounting for uncertainty," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 116-123.
    9. Ferro, Gustavo & Lentini, Emilio J. & Mercadier, Augusto C. & Romero, Carlos A., 2014. "Efficiency in Brazil's water and sanitation sector and its relationship with regional provision, property and the independence of operators," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 42-51.
    10. Chen Lin & Sanford Berg, 2008. "Incorporating Service Quality into Yardstick Regulation: An Application to the Peru Water Sector," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 32(1), pages 53-75, February.
    11. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    12. Barbosa, Alexandro & Lima, Severino Cesário de & Brusca, Isabel, 2016. "Governance and efficiency in the Brazilian water utilities: A dynamic analysis in the process of universal access," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 82-96.
    13. Romano, Giulia & Molinos-Senante, María & Guerrini, Andrea, 2017. "Water utility efficiency assessment in Italy by accounting for service quality: An empirical investigation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 97-108.
    14. Tupper, Henrique Cesar & Resende, Marcelo, 2004. "Efficiency and regulatory issues in the Brazilian water and sewage sector: an empirical study," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 29-40, March.
    15. Ferro, Gustavo & Mercadier, Augusto C., 2016. "Technical efficiency in Chile's water and sanitation providers," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 97-106.
    16. Sabbioni, Guillermo, 2008. "Efficiency in the Brazilian sanitation sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 11-20, March.
    17. Tim Coelli & Shannon Walding, 2005. "Performance Measurement in the Australian Water Supply Industry," CEPA Working Papers Series WP012005, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. Seroa da Motta, Ronaldo & Moreira, Ajax, 2006. "Efficiency and regulation in the sanitation sector in Brazil," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 185-195, September.
    19. Tito Belchior Moreira & Geraldo da Silva Souza & Ricardo Coelho Faria, 2005. "Public Versus Private Water Utilities: Empirical Evidence for Brazilian Companies," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(2), pages 1-7.
    20. Anwandter, Lars & Ozuna, Teofilo Jr., 2002. "Can public sector reforms improve the efficiency of public water utilities?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 687-700, October.
    21. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carvalho Solino Silva, Larissa & Teixeira, Gibran da Silva & Nobre Fernandez, Rodrigo & Halmenschlager, Vinícius, 2024. "Concessions for basic sanitation services in Southern Brazil: A generalized synthetic control analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Carvalho, Anne Emília Costa & Sampaio, Raquel Menezes Bezerra & Sampaio, Luciano Menezes Bezerra, 2023. "The impact of regulation on the Brazilian water and sewerage companies’ efficiency," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(PA).
    3. Sofiane, Boukhari & Dounia, Mrad & Sabri, Dairi & Tarek, Khoualdia & Yassine, Djebbar, 2023. "Utilizing a combined Delphi-FAHP-TOPSIS technique to assess the effectiveness of the water supply service in Algeria," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    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. Miguel A. García-Rubio & Francisco González-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola, 2009. "Performance and ownership in the governance of urban water," FEG Working Paper Series 09/03, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    2. Higuerey, Angel & Trujillo, Lourdes & González, María Manuela, 2017. "Has efficiency improved after the decentralization in the water industry in Venezuela?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 127-136.
    3. Barbosa, Alexandro & Lima, Severino Cesário de & Brusca, Isabel, 2016. "Governance and efficiency in the Brazilian water utilities: A dynamic analysis in the process of universal access," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 82-96.
    4. Guerrini, Andrea & Romano, Giulia & Leardini, Chiara, 2018. "Economies of scale and density in the Italian water industry: A stochastic frontier approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 103-111.
    5. Tourinho, Marco & Santos, Paulo Rosa & Pinto, Francisco Taveira & Camanho, Ana S., 2022. "Performance assessment of water services in Brazilian municipalities: An integrated view of efficiency and access," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Danelon, André F. & Spolador, Humberto F.S. & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2021. "Weather and population size effects on water and sewer treatment costs: Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    7. Nyathikala, Sai Amulya & Jamasb, Tooraj & Llorca, Manuel & Kulshrestha, Mukul, 2023. "Utility governance, incentives, and performance: Evidence from India's urban water sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Ferro, Gustavo & Lentini, Emilio J. & Mercadier, Augusto C. & Romero, Carlos A., 2014. "Efficiency in Brazil's water and sanitation sector and its relationship with regional provision, property and the independence of operators," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 42-51.
    9. Marta Suárez-Varela & María los Ángeles García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J Picazo-Tadeo, 2017. "Ownership and Performance in Water Services Revisited: Does Private Management Really Outperform Public?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(8), pages 2355-2373, June.
    10. Mande Buafua, Patrick, 2015. "Efficiency of urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do organization and regulation matter?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 13-22.
    11. Alexandr Akimov & Paul Simshauser, 2018. "Performance measurement in Australian water utilities: Current state and future directions," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201802, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    12. Ferro, Gustavo & Lentini, Emilio J & Mercadier, Augusto & Brenner, Federica, 2014. "Eficiencia energética en el sector de agua y saneamiento: estimaciones utilizando una función de requerimientos de insumo [Energy efficiency in the water and sanitarion sector: an input requirement," MPRA Paper 58480, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Ferro, Gustavo & Lentini, Emilio J. & Mercadier, Augusto C. & Romero, Carlos A., 2013. "Eficiencia en la prestación de agua y saneamiento y su vinculación con regiones, propiedad e independencia de los prestadores en Brasil [Efficiency in water and sanitation providers and its links w," MPRA Paper 48247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mellah, Thuraya & Ben Amor, Tawfik, 2016. "Performance of the Tunisian Water Utility: An input-distance function approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 18-32.
    15. Byrnes, Joel & Crase, Lin & Dollery, Brian & Villano, Renato, 2010. "The relative economic efficiency of urban water utilities in regional New South Wales and Victoria," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 439-455, August.
    16. Abbott, Malcolm & Cohen, Bruce, 2009. "Productivity and efficiency in the water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 233-244, September.
    17. Francisco González-Gómez & Miguel García‐Rubio & Francisco Alcalá-Olid & M. Ortega-Díaz, 2013. "Outsourcing and Efficiency in the Management of Rural Water Services," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(3), pages 731-747, February.
    18. Salazar-Adams, Alejandro, 2021. "The efficiency of post-reform water utilities in Mexico," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    19. Fernando Antonio Perrone Pinheiro & José Roberto Ferreira Savoia & Claudio Felisoni de Angelo, 2016. "A Comparative Analysis of the Public and Private Water Supply and Sanitation Service Providers’ Work in Brazil," Brazilian Business Review, Fucape Business School, vol. 13(1), pages 115-136, January.
    20. Cuadrado-Ballesteros, Beatriz & García-Sánchez, Isabel-María & Prado-Lorenzo, José-Manuel, 2013. "Effect of modes of public services delivery on the efficiency of local governments: A two-stage approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 23-35.

    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:soceps:v:79:y:2022:i:c:s0038012121001415. 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/seps .

    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.