IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/pubmmg/v30y2010i1p42-48.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards a benchmarking paradigm in European water utilities

Author

Listed:
  • R. Cunha Marques
  • Kristof De Witte

Abstract

This article explains the benefits of using benchmarking tools in the public sector to drive up performance. The authors examine the case of European water utilities, focusing on four countries: Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and the UK. They argue for the creation of a European ‘observatory’ to collect data, promote benchmarking and disseminate best practice in the water sector.

Suggested Citation

  • R. Cunha Marques & Kristof De Witte, 2010. "Towards a benchmarking paradigm in European water utilities," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 42-48, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:42-48
    DOI: 10.1080/09540960903492364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09540960903492364
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09540960903492364?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. PER AGRELL & Peter Bogetoft & Jørgen Tind, 2005. "DEA and Dynamic Yardstick Competition in Scandinavian Electricity Distribution," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 173-201, May.
    2. Powell, Kirsty & Szymanski, Stefan, 1997. "Regulation through comparative performance evaluation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 293-301, December.
    3. Yatchew, Adonis, 2001. "Incentive Regulation of Distributing Utilities Using Yardstick Competition," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 56-60.
    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. Andrei Shleifer, 1985. "A Theory of Yardstick Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 319-327, Autumn.
    6. Marques, Rui Cunha, 2006. "A yardstick competition model for Portuguese water and sewerage services regulation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 175-184, September.
    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. Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Nóvoa, Henriqueta & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "The measurement of asset management performance of water companies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(PA).
    2. Romano, Giulia & Guerrini, Andrea & Campedelli, Bettina, 2015. "The new Italian water tariff method: A launching point for novel infrastructures or a backwards step?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 45-53.
    3. Henriques, Alda A. & Camanho, Ana S. & Amorim, Pedro & Silva, Jaime G., 2020. "Performance benchmarking using composite indicators to support regulation of the Portuguese wastewater sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Cruz, Nuno Ferreira da & Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2013. "Disentangling the cost efficiency of jointly provided water and wastewater services," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 70-77.
    5. Guerrini, Andrea & Romano, Giulia, 2013. "The process of tariff setting in an unstable legal framework: An Italian case study," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 78-85.
    6. Landriani, Loris & Lepore, Luigi & D'Amore, Gabriella & Pozzoli, Stefano & Alvino, Federico, 2019. "Decorporatization of a municipal water utility: A case study from Italy," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 43-47.
    7. Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Nóvoa, Henriqueta & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "Performance analytics for regulation in retail water utilities: Guiding asset management by identifying peers and targets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Pinto, Francisco Silva & Simões, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2017. "Raising the bar: The role of governance in performance assessments," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 38-47.

    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. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Hideo Kozumi & Noriaki Matsushima, 2009. "Does yardstick regulation really work? Empirical evidence from Japan’s rail industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 308-323, December.
    2. Ayako Suzuki, 2012. "Yardstick Competition to Elicit Private Information: An Empirical Analysis," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(4), pages 313-338, June.
    3. Varmaz, Armin & Varwig, Andreas & Poddig, Thorsten, 2013. "Centralized resource planning and Yardstick competition," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 112-118.
    4. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Chen, Xiaohong, 2023. "Nested frontier-based best practice regulation under asymmetric information in a principal–agent framework," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(1), pages 269-285.
    5. Nicolò Avogadro & Sebastian Birolini & Mattia Cattaneo & Paolo Malighetti & Chiara Morlotti & Renato Redondi, 2020. "Yardstick Regulation in a Competitive Context? The Case of the Italian Airports," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 21(3), pages 244-274, September.
    6. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Gudbrand Lien, 2017. "Yardstick Regulation of Electricity Distribution Disentangling Short-run and Long-run Inefficiencies," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    7. Blázquez-Gómez, Leticia & Grifell-Tatjé, Emili, 2011. "Evaluating the regulator: Winners and losers in the regulation of Spanish electricity distribution," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 807-815, September.
    8. Facanha, Luis Otavio & Resende, Marcelo, 2004. "Price cap regulation, incentives and quality:: The case of Brazilian telecommunications," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 133-144, November.
    9. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2017. "A DEA-based incentives system for centrally managed multi-unit organisations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(2), pages 587-598.
    10. repec:dgr:rugsom:14010-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    11. 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.
    12. Michael Hellwig & Dominik Schober & Luis Cabral, 2018. "Incentive Regulation: Evidence From German Electricity Networks," Working Papers 18-03, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    13. Agrell, Per J. & Brea-Solís, Humberto, 2017. "Capturing heterogeneity in electricity distribution operations: A critical review of latent class modelling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 361-372.
    14. Dimitri Dimitropoulos and Adonis Yatchew, 2017. "Is Productivity Growth in Electricity Distribution Negative? An Empirical Analysis Using Ontario Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    15. AGRELL, Per & BOGETOFT, Peter, 2013. "Benchmarking and regulation," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2013008, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    16. Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz & Lopes, Ana & Vilela, Bruno, 2019. "Pitfalls in estimating the X-factor: The case of energy transmission regulation in Brazil," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-9.
    17. 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.
    18. Lowry, Mark Newton & Getachew, Lullit, 2009. "Statistical benchmarking in utility regulation: Role, standards and methods," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1323-1330, April.
    19. Ayako Suzuki, 2008. "Yardstick Competition to Elicit Private Information: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Gas Distribution Industry," ISER Discussion Paper 0709, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    20. Pombo, Carlos & Taborda, Rodrigo, 2006. "Performance and efficiency in Colombia's power distribution system: Effects of the 1994 reform," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 339-369, May.
    21. Gidion, Dickson K. & Hong, Jin & Adams, Magdalene Z.A. & Khoveyni, Mohammad, 2019. "Network DEA models for assessing urban water utility efficiency," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 48-58.

    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:taf:pubmmg:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:42-48. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPMM20 .

    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.