IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0251874.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productivity growth, economies of scale and scope in the water and sewerage industry: The Chilean case

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Molinos-Senante
  • Alexandros Maziotis

Abstract

Evaluating the performance and analyzing the cost drivers of water utilities is of great interest for water regulators and water sector managers. This study uses a quadratic cost function to investigate the existence of economies of scale and scope in the Chilean water and sewerage industry over the period 2010–2017. We also estimate and decompose productivity growth into technical change and scale efficiency change. Technical change is further broken into pure, non-neutral and scale-augmenting technical change. The results indicate that cost savings can be achieved by increases in the scale of production and the separation of water and sewerage services. Productivity progressed favorably throughout the whole period at an annual rate of 8.4%, which was attributed to the scale effect, the adoption of new technologies and a good allocation of resources. Some policy implications are finally discussed based on our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Molinos-Senante & Alexandros Maziotis, 2021. "Productivity growth, economies of scale and scope in the water and sewerage industry: The Chilean case," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0251874
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251874
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251874&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0251874?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha & Berg, Sanford, 2012. "A meta-regression analysis of benchmarking studies on water utilities market structure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 40-49.
    2. Sauer, Johannes, 2004. "Rural water suppliers and efficiency: Empirical evidence from East and West Germany," IAMO Discussion Papers 63, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    3. 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.
    4. E. Martínez-Budría & S. Jara-Díaz & F. Ramos-Real, 2003. "Adapting Productivity Theory to the Quadratic Cost Function. An Application to the Spanish Electric Sector," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 213-229, September.
    5. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Pedro Carvalho & Rui Cunha Marques, 2015. "Estimating Size and Scope Economies in the Portuguese Water Sector Using the Most Appropriate Functional Form," The Engineering Economist, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(2), pages 109-137, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Simon Porcher & Stéphane S. Saussier, 2019. "Facing the Challenges of Water Governance," Post-Print hal-02145790, HAL.
    9. María Molinos-Senante & Alexandros Maziotis, 2020. "Drivers of productivity change in water companies: an empirical approach for England and Wales," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 972-991, November.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Bottasso, Anna & Conti, Maurizio & Piacenz, Massimiliano & Vannoni, Davide, 2011. "The appropriateness of the poolability assumption for multiproduct technologies: Evidence from the English water and sewerage utilities," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 112-117, March.
    13. Saal David S. & Arocena Pablo & Maziotis Alexandros & Triebs Thomas, 2013. "Scale and Scope Economies and the Efficient Vertical and Horizontal Configuration of the Water Industry: A Survey of the Literature," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 93-129, March.
    14. Francisco Javier Ramos-Real & Beatriz Tovar, 2010. "Productivity Change and Economies of Scale in Container Port Terminals A Cost Function Approach," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 44(2), pages 231-246, May.
    15. 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.
    16. Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2014. "Computing economies of vertical integration, economies of scope and economies of scale using partial frontier nonparametric methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 292-307.
    17. Abbott, Malcolm & Cohen, Bruce, 2009. "Productivity and efficiency in the water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 233-244, September.
    18. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R & Tretheway, Michael W, 1980. "Flexible Cost Functions for Multiproduct Firms," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 477-481, August.
    19. María Molinos-Senante & Simon Porcher & Alexandros Maziotis, 2018. "Productivity change and its drivers for the Chilean water companies: A comparison of full private and concessionary companies," Post-Print hal-02145824, HAL.
    20. 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.
    21. Ferro, Gustavo & Mercadier, Augusto C., 2016. "Technical efficiency in Chile's water and sanitation providers," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 97-106.
    22. Giovanni Fraquelli & Massimiliano Piacenza & Davide Vannoni, 2005. "Cost Savings From Generation and Distribution with an Application to Italian Electric Utilities," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 289-308, November.
    23. Mydland, Ørjan & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Lien, Gudbrand & Amundsveen, Roar & Kvile, Hilde Marit, 2020. "Economies of scope and scale in the Norwegian electricity industry," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 39-46.
    24. Pablo Arocena & David S. Saal & Tim Coelli, 2012. "Vertical and Horizontal Scope Economies in the Regulated U . S . Electric Power Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 434-467, September.
    25. Molinos-Senante, María & Villegas, Andres & Maziotis, Alexandros, 2019. "Are water tariffs sufficient incentives to reduce water leakages? An empirical approach for Chile," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    26. Baltagi, Badi H & Griffin, James M, 1988. "A General Index of Technical Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 20-41, February.
    27. Jara-Diaz, Sergio & Ramos-Real, Francisco Javier & Martinez-Budria, Eduardo, 2004. "Economies of integration in the Spanish electricity industry using a multistage cost function," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 995-1013, November.
    28. David S Saal & David Parker, 2000. "The impact of privatization and regulation on the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales: a translog cost function model," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(6), pages 253-268.
    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. Prasada, Imade Yoga & Nugroho, Agus Dwi & Lakner, Zoltan, 2022. "Impact of the FLEGT license on Indonesian plywood competitiveness in the European Union," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Adam Fuller & Steven M. Smith, 2024. "Economies of Scope in the Water-Energy Nexus," Working Papers 2024-02, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.

    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. Molinos-Senante, María & Maziotis, Alexandros & Sala-Garrido, Ramón, 2020. "Changes in the total costs of the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry: The decomposed effect of price and quantity inputs on efficiency," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Molinos-Senante, María & Villegas, Andres & Maziotis, Alexandros, 2019. "Are water tariffs sufficient incentives to reduce water leakages? An empirical approach for Chile," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Mydland, Ørjan & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Lien, Gudbrand & Amundsveen, Roar & Kvile, Hilde Marit, 2020. "Economies of scope and scale in the Norwegian electricity industry," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 39-46.
    5. Anna Bottasso & Maurizio Conti, 2021. "Economie di integrazione verticale ed economie di scopo nel settore idrico e fognario: alcune considerazioni alla luce dell?evidenza empirica internazionale," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2021(3), pages 89-128.
    6. 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).
    7. Gugler, Klaus & Liebensteiner, Mario & Schmitt, Stephan, 2017. "Vertical disintegration in the European electricity sector: Empirical evidence on lost synergies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 450-478.
    8. Fetz, Aurelio & Filippini, Massimo, 2010. "Economies of vertical integration in the Swiss electricity sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1325-1330, November.
    9. 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).
    10. Michael Zschille, 2016. "Cost Structure and Economies of Scale in German Water Supply," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1576, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. 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.
    12. Massarutto, Antonio & Grassetti, Luca & Lambardi di San Miniato, Michele & Moletta, Mattia, 2023. "Efficient firms are all alike, but every inefficient firm is such in its own way: Heterogeneity of costs determinants in the Italian water sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Klaus Gugler & Mario Liebensteiner, 2016. "Productivity Growth and the General X-factor in Austria’s Gas Distribution," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp236, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    14. Michael Zschille, 2014. "Nonparametric measures of returns to scale: an application to German water supply," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1029-1053, November.
    15. Jinjin Zhao, 2020. "Productivity change in the privatized water sector in China (1999–2006)," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 227-241, April.
    16. Goh, Kim Huat & See, Kok Fong, 2021. "Measuring the productivity growth of Malaysia's water sector: Implications for regulatory reform," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    17. Ramon Sala-Garrido & Manuel Mocholi-Arce & Maria Molinos-Senante & Michail Smyrnakis & Alexandros Maziotis, 2021. "Eco-Efficiency of the English and Welsh Water Companies: A Cross Performance Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-17, March.
    18. Saal David S. & Arocena Pablo & Maziotis Alexandros & Triebs Thomas, 2013. "Scale and Scope Economies and the Efficient Vertical and Horizontal Configuration of the Water Industry: A Survey of the Literature," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 93-129, March.
    19. Maziotis, Alexandros & Sala-Garrido, Ramon & Mocholi-Arce, Manuel & Molinos-Senante, Maria, 2023. "Cost and quality of service performance in the Chilean water industry: A comparison of stochastic approaches," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 211-219.
    20. Liu, Junqing & Fukushige, Mototsugu, 2020. "Efficiency and pricing of water supply and sewerage services in Japan," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0251874. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.