Measuring the efficiency of water utilities: a cross-national comparison between Portugal and Italy

Cruz, Nuno F. da; Marques, Rui Cunha; Romano, Giulia; Guerrini, Andrea

doi:10.2166/wp.2012.103

Cited by 57 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Several scholars have focused their effort to understand what influence the typology of ownership and/or management-public vs. private-may have on efficiency or, more generally, on performance of the water service provision industry [3][4][5][6][7]. An in-depth literature review conducted by Berg and Marques [8] reveals that the topic of the influence of water utilities ownership and management on performance and cost efficiency is one of the most studied by scholars.…”

Section: Private Vs Public Ownership And/or Management Of Water Provmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Public-Private Partnerships a Source of Greater Efficiency in Water Supply? Results of a Non-Parametric Performance Analysis Relating to the Italian Industry

Storto

2013

Water

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This article reports the outcome of a performance study of the water service provision industry in Italy. The study evaluates the efficiency of 21 "private or public-private" equity and 32 "public" equity water service operators and investigates controlling factors. In particular, the influence that the operator typology and service management nature -private vs. public -has on efficiency is assessed. The study employed a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis methodology. In the first stage, the operational efficiency of water supply operators is calculated by implementing a conventional BCC DEA model, that uses both physical infrastructure and financial input and output variables to explore economies of scale. In the second stage, bootstrapped DEA and Tobit regression are performed to estimate the influence that a number of environmental factors have on water supplier efficiency. The results show that the integrated water provision industry in Italy is characterized by operational inefficiencies of service operators, and scale and agglomeration economies may have a not negligible effect on efficiency. In addition, the operator typology and its geographical location affect efficiency.

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Section: Private Vs Public Ownership And/or Management Of Water Provmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Public-Private Partnerships a Source of Greater Efficiency in Water Supply? Results of a Non-Parametric Performance Analysis Relating to the Italian Industry

Storto

2013

Water

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“…Some studies find that privately owned utilities perform better in financial terms compared to publicly owned companies (Guerrini et al, 2011; Marques, 2008). Other works in contrast find that water utilities under public ownership are more efficient than both privately owned and hybrid utilities (Ferreira da Cruz, Marques, Romano, & Guerrini, 2012; Romano & Guerrini, 2014). In other contributions finally, hybrid mixed‐ownership firms result to be more efficient than private firms (Ferreira Da Cruz & Marques, 2012; Renzetti & Dupont, 2004).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

et al. 2020

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The recent economic literature has largely investigated sustainability in the provision of public utilities, highlighting the role of governance models in the determination of economic results. Little attention however has been devoted to the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In Italy, a long‐lasting debate on governance structures in the water sector has been fuelled by scholars and policymakers for more than 30 years, whereas the first (and unique) experiment involving the return of full public management in water provision is taking place in the city of Naples. The present work analyses this peculiar case study, aiming to assess the effects of a major governance shift that occurred in the early 2010s—that is, decorporatisation—in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability. We resort to a bundle of qualitative and quantitative techniques to address the research question and our exploratory results suggest that decorporatisation was overall beneficial: Although little changed in terms of economic sustainability, the social and environmental dimensions benefitted from the shift in governance.

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“…Therefore, no clear picture has emerged and this result has further been confirmed by recent analyses of the entire literature related to the water industry (Renzetti & Dupont, 2003;Abbott & Cohen, 2009;Pérard, 2009;Walter et al, 2009;Berg & Marques, 2011;Guerrini et al, 2011). With reference to Italy, Cruz et al (2012) show that, in both Italy and Portugal, water utilities with public ownership are more efficient than mixed and private ones, demonstrating that the reforms favoring private sector participation in both countries were not necessarily successful. In contrast with previous findings, , using a wider dataset for the Italian water industry, show that the presence of a private shareholder improves the global efficiency of water utility firms.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

Governance, strategy and efficiency of water utilities: the Italian case

2017

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The determinants of the performance of water utilities are a topical issue worldwide. This paper analyzes the relationship between efficiency and corporate governance in Italian water utilities, measured through data envelopment analysis. Using an M-quantile regression model, efficiency estimations are ranked considering relevant governance (board size and composition; firm size) and strategy features (membership of a corporate group; provision of wholesale services) in order to provide decision-makers with indications regarding the best corporate governance and strategic choices to improve the efficiency. Results show that fully publicly owned firms reach lower levels of efficiency than their counterparts with an ownership structure that also includes private partners. Moreover, higher levels of efficiency are reached by utilities with more than six board members and by firms in which the presence of politically connected directors is substantial (more than two-thirds of board members being politically connected). The empirical results also show that the worst situation is where the entirety or the great majority of board members are not graduates or over a certain age and where the firm size is ‘median’. Finally, being part of a group and having the opportunity to provide wholesale services to other firms contribute to improving efficiency

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Measuring the efficiency of water utilities: a cross-national comparison between Portugal and Italy

Cited by 57 publications

References 37 publications

Are Public-Private Partnerships a Source of Greater Efficiency in Water Supply? Results of a Non-Parametric Performance Analysis Relating to the Italian Industry

Are Public-Private Partnerships a Source of Greater Efficiency in Water Supply? Results of a Non-Parametric Performance Analysis Relating to the Italian Industry

Corporate governance and sustainability in water utilities. The effects of decorporatisation in the city of Naples, Italy

Governance, strategy and efficiency of water utilities: the Italian case

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