IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eut/journl/v15y2010i2p83.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reform and Efficiency: An Application to Iranian Regional Electricity Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Mohsen Pourebadollahan Covich

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran)

  • Archana Aggarwal

    (Center for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)

Abstract

The electricity in Iran, like many other countries, has undergone a reform. This reform which separated the distribution sector from the regional electricity companies took place in 1993. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the cost structure of Iranian regional electricity companies with respect to scale and cost efficiency, in order to evaluate the changes in the performance of these companies through the reform. To that end, a translog average cost function was estimated for a panel of 16 Iranian regional electricity companies over the period 1989–1990 to 2002–2003, using the time–varying cost efficiency frontier model suggested by Cornwell, Schmidt and Sickles (1990). The results indicate the existence of economies of scale pre and post–reform for all companies; however, it is more evident after the reform. In addition, the findings on cost efficiency show that most of these companies were suffering from the low efficiency, and the reform has improved the efficiency of the majority of companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohsen Pourebadollahan Covich & Archana Aggarwal, 2010. "Reform and Efficiency: An Application to Iranian Regional Electricity Companies," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 15(2), pages 83-104, spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:eut:journl:v:15:y:2010:i:2:p:83
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://80.66.179.253/eut/journl/20102-6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimo Filippini, 1998. "Are Municipal Electricity Distribution Utilities Natural Monopolies?," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 157-174, June.
    2. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 2008. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195183528.
    3. Ali Emami Meibodi, 1998. "Efficiency Considerations in the Electricity Supply Industry; The Case of Iran," Surrey Energy Economics Centre (SEEC), School of Economics Discussion Papers (SEEDS) 95, Surrey Energy Economics Centre (SEEC), School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    4. Filippini, Massimo & Wild, Jorg, 2001. "Regional differences in electricity distribution costs and their consequences for yardstick regulation of access prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 477-488, July.
    5. Farsi, Mehdi & Filippini, Massimo, 2009. "An analysis of cost efficiency in Swiss multi-utilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 306-315, March.
    6. Sadjadi, S.J. & Omrani, H., 2008. "Data envelopment analysis with uncertain data: An application for Iranian electricity distribution companies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4247-4254, November.
    7. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2000. "Benchmarking and regulation: international electricity experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 107-130, September.
    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. Ali Akkemik, K., 2009. "Cost function estimates, scale economies and technological progress in the Turkish electricity generation sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 204-213, January.
    2. Christian Growitsch & Tooraj Jamasb & Michael Pollitt, 2009. "Quality of service, efficiency and scale in network industries: an analysis of European electricity distribution," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(20), pages 2555-2570.
    3. Filippini, Massimo & Hrovatin, Nevenka & Zoric, Jelena, 2004. "Efficiency and regulation of the Slovenian electricity distribution companies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 335-344, February.
    4. Mota, R.L., 2004. "‘Comparing Brazil and USA electricity performance; what was the impact of privatisation?’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0423, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Christian von Hirschhausen & Astrid Cullmann & Andreas Kappeler, 2006. "Efficiency analysis of German electricity distribution utilities - non-parametric and parametric tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(21), pages 2553-2566.
    6. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini, 2004. "Regulation and Measuring Cost-Efficiency with Panel Data Models: Application to Electricity Distribution Utilities," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 25(1), pages 1-19, August.
    7. Saastamoinen, Antti & Bjørndal, Endre & Bjørndal, Mette, 2017. "Specification of merger gains in the Norwegian electricity distribution industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 96-107.
    8. Saastamoinen, Antti & Bjørndal, Endre & Bjørndal, Mette, 2016. "Specification of merger gains in the Norwegian electricity distribution industry," Discussion Papers 2016/7, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    9. Jamasb, T. & Söderberg, M., 2009. "Yardstick and Ex-post Regulation by Norm Model: Empirical Equivalence, Pricing Effect, and Performance in Sweeden," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0908, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2000. "Benchmarking and regulation: international electricity experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 107-130, September.
    11. Ajayi, Victor & Weyman-Jones, Thomas & Glass, Anthony, 2017. "Cost efficiency and electricity market structure: A case study of OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 283-291.
    12. Christian von Hirschhausen & Andreas Kappeler, 2004. "Productivity Analysis of German Electricity Distribution Utilities," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 418, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Luis Alberto Andrés & José Luis Guasch & Sebastián López Azumendi, 2011. "Regulation and Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises: Issues for Improved Efficiency and Competitiveness and Lessons for China," Chapters, in: Michael Faure & Xinzhu Zhang (ed.), Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Tooraj Jamasb & Paul Nillesen & Michael Pollitt, 2003. "Strategic behaviour under regulation benchmarking," Working Papers EP19, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    15. Mirza, Faisal Mehmood & Rizvi, Syed Badar-Ul-Husnain & Bergland, Olvar, 2021. "Service quality, technical efficiency and total factor productivity growth in Pakistan's post-reform electricity distribution companies," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Goto, Mika & Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki, 2009. "Productivity growth and deregulation of Japanese electricity distribution," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3130-3138, August.
    17. Del Bo, Chiara F., 2013. "FDI spillovers at different levels of industrial and spatial aggregation: Evidence from the electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1490-1502.
    18. Luis Orea & Tooraj Jamasb, 2017. "Regulating Heterogeneous Utilities: A New Latent Class Approach with Application to the Norwegian Electricity Distribution Networks," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(4), pages 101-127, July.
    19. Jamasb, Tooraj & Nillesen, Paul & Pollitt, Michael, 2004. "Strategic behaviour under regulatory benchmarking," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 825-843, September.
    20. Fazıl Gökgöz & Ercem Erkul, 2014. "Energy Efficiency Analysis For The European Countries," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 8(1), pages 124-140.

    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:eut:journl:v:15:y:2010:i:2:p:83. 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: [z.rahimalipour] (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fecutir.html .

    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.