IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aut/wpaper/201709.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare-Maximising Investors? – Utility Firm Performance with Heterogeneous Quality Preferences and Endogenous Ownership

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Meade

    (Auckland University of Technology and Cognitus Economic Insight)

  • Magnus Soderberg

    (Syddansk Universitet)

Abstract

We model the endogenous ownership of a monopoly utility by either investors or the firm’s customers. Ownership arises endogenously based on customers’ quality preference, which affects each ownership type’s viability. Customer ownership arises when quality preference falls below the threshold for profitable entry by investors, but above that for entry by customer-owners. When quality preferences diverge sufficiently, a profitmaximising investor-owned utility produces higher welfare than a welfare-maximising customer-owned firm, despite its higher prices. Otherwise, a customer-owned utility produces greater efficiency, quality and welfare, despite having lower-value customers. These predictions agree with empirical findings for US utilities, and find direct support using data from Electricity Distribution Businesses in New Zealand. To reflect ownership endogeneity, we instrument for ownership changes using the staggered rollout of regional air quality regulations. Our findings suggest that performance comparisons of customer- and investor-owned utilities should account for ownership endogeneity. This has implications for ownership debates, efficiency study specification, and the development of regulatory screens.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Meade & Magnus Soderberg, 2017. "Welfare-Maximising Investors? – Utility Firm Performance with Heterogeneous Quality Preferences and Endogenous Ownership," Working Papers 2017-09, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:aut:wpaper:201709
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aut.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/107889/Economics-WP-2017-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Magnus Söderberg, 2011. "The Role Of Model Specification In Finding The Influence Of Ownership And Regulatory Regime On Utility Cost: The Case Of Swedish Electricity Distribution," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(2), pages 178-190, April.
    3. Paul Nillesen & Michael Pollitt, 2011. "Ownership Unbundling in Electricity Distribution: Empirical Evidence from New Zealand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(1), pages 61-93, January.
    4. Pier Angelo Mori, 2013. "Customer ownership of public utilities: new wine in old bottles," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 2(1), pages 54-74, August.
    5. Estache, Antonio & Rossi, Martin A., 2005. "Do regulation and ownership drive the efficiency of electricity distribution? Evidence from Latin America," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 253-257, February.
    6. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1998. "Cooperatives vs. outside ownership," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19360, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Pollitt, Michael G., 2012. "The role of policy in energy transitions: Lessons from the energy liberalisation era," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 128-137.
    8. Coelli, Tim J. & Gautier, Axel & Perelman, Sergio & Saplacan-Pop, Roxana, 2013. "Estimating the cost of improving quality in electricity distribution: A parametric distance function approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 287-297.
    9. Tooraj Jamasb & Magnus Söderberg, 2010. "The Effects of Average Norm Model Regulation: The Case of Electricity Distribution in Sweden," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(3), pages 249-269, May.
    10. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1996. "The Governance of Exchanges: Members' Cooperatives versus Outside Ownership," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 12(4), pages 53-69, Winter.
    11. Richard Meade, 2015. "Incentives, Efficiency and Quality in Regulated Monopolies under Customer Ownership," Working Papers 2015-05, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    12. Jamasb, Tooraj & Orea, Luis & Pollitt, Michael, 2012. "Estimating the marginal cost of quality improvements: The case of the UK electricity distribution companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1498-1506.
    13. A. Michael Spence, 1975. "Monopoly, Quality, and Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(2), pages 417-429, Autumn.
    14. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2009. "Alternating Currents or Counter-Revolution? Contemporary Electricity Reform in New Zealand, VUW Press 2005 , 1-346," Working Paper Series 4321, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    15. Claggett, E. Jr. & Hollas, Daniel R. & Stansell, Stanley R., 1995. "The effects of ownership form on profit maximization and cost minimization behavior within municipal and cooperative electrical distribution utilities," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(35), pages 533-550.
    16. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    17. John Kwoka, 2005. "The comparative advantage of public ownership: evidence from U.S. electric utilities," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 622-640, May.
    18. Aoife Brophy Haney & Michael G. Pollitt, 2013. "New models of public ownership in energy," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 174-192, March.
    19. Brent Hueth & Philippe Marcoul & Roger G. Ginder, 2004. "Cooperative Formation and Financial Contracting in Agricultural Markets," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 03-wp349, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    20. Richard T. Boylan, 2016. "Power to the People: Does Ownership Type Influence Electricity Service?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 441-476.
    21. Giannakis, Dimitrios & Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2005. "Benchmarking and incentive regulation of quality of service: an application to the UK electricity distribution networks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(17), pages 2256-2271, November.
    22. Dieter Helm & Tom Tindall, 2009. "The evolution of infrastructure and utility ownership and its implications," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(3), pages 411-434, Autumn.
    23. Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Hjalmarsson, Lennart, 1998. "Relative performance of public and private ownership under yardstick competition: electricity retail distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 97-122, January.
    24. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    25. Roy Brouwer & Fumbi Job & Bianca Kroon & Richard Johnston, 2015. "Comparing Willingness to Pay for Improved Drinking-Water Quality Using Stated Preference Methods in Rural and Urban Kenya," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 81-94, February.
    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. Meade, Richard & Söderberg, Magnus, 2020. "Is welfare higher when utilities are owned by customers instead of investors? Evidence from electricity distribution in New Zealand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Ovaere, Marten, 2023. "Cost-efficiency and quality regulation of energy network utilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    3. Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2015. "Incentive regulation and utility benchmarking for electricity network security," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-127.
    4. Erik Lundin, 2020. "Effects of Privatization on Price and Labor Efficiency: The Swedish Electricity Distribution Sector," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 247-274.
    5. Mirza, Faisal Mehmood & Mushtaq, Iqra, 2022. "Estimating the marginal cost of improving services quality in electricity distribution utilities of Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Deng, Na-Qian & Liu, Li-Qiu & Deng, Ying-Zhi, 2018. "Estimating the effects of restructuring on the technical and service-quality efficiency of electricity companies in China," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 91-100.
    7. Richard Meade, 2015. "Incentives, Efficiency and Quality in Regulated Monopolies under Customer Ownership," Working Papers 2015-05, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    8. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    9. Yuan, Peng & Pu, Yuran & Liu, Chang, 2021. "Improving electricity supply reliability in China: Cost and incentive regulation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    10. Xie, Bai-Chen & Zhang, Zhen-Jiang & Anaya, Karim L., 2021. "Has the unbundling reform improved the service efficiency of China's power grid firms?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    11. Zakaria, Muhammad & Noureen, Rabia, 2016. "Benchmarking and regulation of power distribution companies in Pakistan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1095-1099.
    12. Rahmatallah Poudineh & Tooraj Jamasb, 2013. "Investment and Efficiency under Incentive Regulation: The Case of the Norwegian Electricity Distribution Networks," Working Papers EPRG 1306, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    13. Chen, Hao & Chen, Xi & Niu, Jinye & Xiang, Mengyu & He, Weijun & Küfeoğlu, Sinan, 2021. "Estimating the marginal cost of reducing power outage durations in China: A parametric distance function approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    14. Elisa Borghi & Chiara Del Bo & Massimo Florio, 2016. "Institutions and Firms' Productivity: Evidence from Electricity Distribution in the EU," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(2), pages 170-196, April.
    15. Astrid Cullmann & Maria Nieswand & Julia Rechlitz, 2017. "Productive Efficiency and Ownership When Market Restructuring Affects Production Technologies," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1641, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Cambini, Carlo & Croce, Annalisa & Fumagalli, Elena, 2014. "Output-based incentive regulation in electricity distribution: Evidence from Italy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 205-216.
    17. Bhatt, Brijesh & Singh, Anoop, 2021. "Power sector reforms and technology adoption in the Indian electricity distribution sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(PA).
    18. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 18942, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    19. Coelli, Tim J. & Gautier, Axel & Perelman, Sergio & Saplacan-Pop, Roxana, 2013. "Estimating the cost of improving quality in electricity distribution: A parametric distance function approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 287-297.
    20. Schober, Dominik, 2013. "Static vs. dynamic impacts of unbundling: Electricity markets in South America," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-033, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Utilities; Price; Efficiency; Quality; Welfare; Ownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • P13 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Cooperative Enterprises

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:aut:wpaper:201709. 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: Gail Pacheco (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fbautnz.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.