IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jincot/v13y2013i3p399-415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ownership, Scale Economies and Efficiency in the Italian Water Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Valeria Cosmo

Abstract

The Italian water sector is characterized by the presence of several water companies, with different ownership types; Fabbri and Fraquelli (Empirica 27:65–82, 2000 ) and Antonioli and Filippini (Util Policy 10:181–187, 2001 ) have analyzed the presence of economies of scale and scope in the sector while Abrate et al. (Journal of Productivity Analysis 35:227–242, 2011 ) have assessed the role of the heterogeneity in this sector. In recent years, the Italian water sector has been subject to a large reorganization, following the implementation of the EC Directive 60/00 for the harmonization of the pricing rules and polluting principles of the Member States. However, the reorganization of the sector is far from being accomplished, and the Italian water companies still face strong regulatory uncertainty associated with the absence of an independent authority. The lack of clear regulatory principles and the presence of almost 100 different companies managed differently across the territory requires the re-analysis of the possible sources of inefficiencies, in order to understand what kind of policy measures might be implemented to improve the performance of the water utilities and take them into account when the final tariff is fixed. This paper estimates a stochastic frontier to empirically investigate the main sources of inefficiency for a sample of 65 Italian water companies. First, this paper investigates whether a positive relationship exists between the firm’s ownership type and efficiency by using different estimation methods; second, this paper investigates whether the presence of economies of scale in the Italian water sector still exist after the merging process that recently took place as part of the sector reorganization. The estimation results show that ownership is not related to the firm’s performance and that the Italian water sector is still characterized by the presence of economies of scale. This result indicates that local communities may benefit from merging into larger water districts. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Valeria Cosmo, 2013. "Ownership, Scale Economies and Efficiency in the Italian Water Sector," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 399-415, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jincot:v:13:y:2013:i:3:p:399-415
    DOI: 10.1007/s10842-012-0131-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10842-012-0131-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10842-012-0131-z?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. Greene, William H., 1980. "Maximum likelihood estimation of econometric frontier functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 27-56, May.
    2. Johannes Sauer & Klaus Frohberg, 2007. "Allocative efficiency of rural water supply – a globally flexible SGM cost frontier," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 31-40, February.
    3. Diewert, Walter E & Wales, Terence J, 1987. "Flexible Functional Forms and Global Curvature Conditions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 43-68, January.
    4. Antonioli, B. & Filippini, M., 2001. "The use of a variable cost function in the regulation of the Italian water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 181-187.
    5. Arne Henningsen & Christian Henning, 2009. "Imposing regional monotonicity on translog stochastic production frontiers with a simple three-step procedure," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 217-229, December.
    6. Hung-jen Wang & Peter Schmidt, 2002. "One-Step and Two-Step Estimation of the Effects of Exogenous Variables on Technical Efficiency Levels," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 129-144, September.
    7. Graziano Abrate & Fabrizio Erbetta & Giovanni Fraquelli, 2011. "Public utility planning and cost efficiency in a decentralized regulation context: the case of the Italian integrated water service," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 227-242, June.
    8. Serge Garcia & Alban Thomas, 2001. "The Structure of Municipal Water Supply Costs: Application to a Panel of French Local Communities," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 5-29, July.
    9. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & William Greene, 2005. "Efficiency Measurement in Network Industries: Application to the Swiss Railway Companies," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 69-90, July.
    10. Teeples, Ronald K & Glyer, David, 1987. "Cost of Water Delivery Systems: Specification and Ownership Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 399-408, August.
    11. Pitt, Mark M. & Lee, Lung-Fei, 1981. "The measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the Indonesian weaving industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-64, August.
    12. Johannes Sauer & Klaus Frohberg & Heinrich Hockmann, 2006. "Stochastic Efficiency Measurement: The Curse of Theoretical Consistency," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 139-165, May.
    13. Arunava Bhattacharyya & Elliott Parker & Kambiz Raffiee, 1994. "An Examination of the Effect of Ownership on the Relative Efficiency of Public and Private Water Utilities," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 70(2), pages 197-209.
    14. Koebel, Bertrand & Falk, Martin & Laisney, Francois, 2003. "Imposing and Testing Curvature Conditions on a Box-Cox Cost Function," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(2), pages 319-335, April.
    15. Paola Fabbri & Giovanni Fraquelli, 2000. "Costs and Structure of Technology in the Italian Water Industry," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 65-82, March.
    16. Johannes Sauer & Klaus Frohberg & Henrich Hockmann, 2006. "Stochastic efficiency measurement: The curse of theoretical consistency," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 9, pages 139-166, May.
    17. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    18. Greene, William, 2005. "Reconsidering heterogeneity in panel data estimators of the stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 269-303, June.
    19. John Ashton, 2000. "Cost efficiency in the UK water and sewerage industry," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(7), pages 455-458.
    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. Maziotis, Alexandros & Villegas, Andrés & Molinos-Senante, María & Sala-Garrido, Ramon, 2020. "Impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on water company efficiency: Evidence from Chile," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(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. Farsi, Mehdi & Filippini, Massimo, 2009. "An analysis of cost efficiency in Swiss multi-utilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 306-315, March.
    2. Walter, Matthias & Cullmann, Astrid & von Hirschhausen, Christian & Wand, Robert & Zschille, Michael, 2009. "Quo vadis efficiency analysis of water distribution? A comparative literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 225-232, September.
    3. Graziano Abrate & Fabrizio Erbetta & Giovanni Fraquelli, 2011. "Public utility planning and cost efficiency in a decentralized regulation context: the case of the Italian integrated water service," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 227-242, June.
    4. Mulwa, Richard & Kabubo-Mariara, Jane, 2017. "Productive Efficiency and Its Determinants in a Changing Climate: A Monotonic Translog Stochastic Frontier Analysis," EfD Discussion Paper 17-6, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    5. Abbott, Malcolm & Cohen, Bruce, 2009. "Productivity and efficiency in the water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 233-244, September.
    6. François Destandau & Serge Garcia, 2014. "Service quality, scale economies and ownership: an econometric analysis of water supply costs," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 152-182, October.
    7. Mehdi Farsi & Aurelio Fetz & Massimo Filippini, 2007. "Benchmarking and Regulation in the Electricity Distribution Sector," CEPE Working paper series 07-54, CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zurich.
    8. Sickles, Robin C. & Song, Wonho & Zelenyuk, Valentin, 2018. "Econometric Analysis of Productivity: Theory and Implementation in R," Working Papers 18-008, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Giovanni Marin & Alessandro Palma, 2015. "Technology invention and diffusion in residential energy consumption. A stochastic frontier approach," SEEDS Working Papers 1415, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Sep 2015.
    11. Anne-Kathrin Last & Heike Wetzel, 2010. "The efficiency of German public theaters: a stochastic frontier analysis approach," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(2), pages 89-110, May.
    12. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & William Greene, 2006. "Application Of Panel Data Models In Benchmarking Analysis Of The Electricity Distribution Sector," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3), pages 271-290, September.
    13. Valentin Zelenyuk & Zhichao Wang, 2023. "Random vs. Explained Inefficiency in Stochastic Frontier Analysis: The Case of Queensland Hospitals," CEPA Working Papers Series WP052023, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    14. Federico Belotti & Silvio Daidone & Giuseppe Ilardi & Vincenzo Atella, 2013. "Stochastic frontier analysis using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(4), pages 718-758, December.
    15. 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).
    16. 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.
    17. Tateishi, Henrique Ryosuke & Bragagnolo, Cassiano & de Faria, Rosane Nunes, 2020. "Economic and environmental efficiencies of greenhouse gases’ emissions under institutional influence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    18. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & Michael Kuenzle, 2006. "Cost Efficiency in Regional Bus Companies: An Application of Alternative Stochastic Frontier Models," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 40(1), pages 95-118, January.
    19. Anne-Kathrin Faust & Andrea Baranzini, 2014. "The economic performance of Swiss drinking water utilities," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 383-397, June.
    20. Sabbioni, Guillermo, 2008. "Efficiency in the Brazilian sanitation sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 11-20, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    water sector; scale economies; cost efficiency; stochastic frontiers; L5; L95;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:kap:jincot:v:13:y:2013:i:3:p:399-415. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://springer.com .

    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.