A meta-regression analysis of benchmarking studies on water utilities market structure

Zhou

et al. 2018

Water

Abstract:Water resources are important and irreplaceable natural and economic resources. Achieving a balance between economic prosperity and protection of water resource environments is a major issue in China. This article develops a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach with undesirable outputs by using Seiford's linear converting method to estimate water use efficiencies for 30 provinces in China, from 2008-2016,and then analyzes the influencing factors while using a DEA-Tobit model. The findings show that the overall water use efficiency of the measured Chinese provinces, when considering sewage emissions as the undesirable output, is 0.582. Thus, most regions still need improvement. Provinces with the highest water efficiency are located in economically developed Eastern China. The spatial pattern of water use efficiency in China is consistent with the general pattern of regional economic development. This study implies that factors like export dependence, technical progress, and educational value have a positive influence on water use efficiency. Further, while industrial structure has had a negative impact, government intervention has had little impact on water use efficiency. These research results will provide a scientific basis for the government to make plans for water resource development, and it may be helpful in improving regional sustainable development.

Section: The Tobit Regression Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Use Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors in China: Based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)—Tobit Model

Zhou

et al. 2018

Water

“…(21) Carvalho et al () also recently published a meta‐regression that was based on production or cost estimates from earlier studies. The issues examined in this analysis are economies of scale and scope for water utilities.…”

Section: Empirical Results To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

From State to Market Revisited: A Reassessment of the Empirical Evidence on the Efficiency of Public (And Privately‐owned) Enterprises

Mühlenkamp

2015

Ann Public Coop Econ

For several decades public enterprises have been criticized for their poor economic performance. Many economists take it as 'conventional wisdom' that publicly owned enterprises are inefficient by their very nature. This seemed to be proved by what is probably the most cited survey worldwide, that written by Megginson and Netter (2001). They claim: 'Research now supports the proposition that privately owned firms are more efficient and more profitable than otherwise-comparable stateowned firms ' (p. 380). We argue that profits are not a reasonable performance measure for public enterprises. However, our main focus is to present a much more comprehensive review of the empirical evidence, including more recent research than was provided by Megginson and Netter. The evidence indicates that these authors were biased in their selection of empirical studies and their conclusion as well. Firstly, the true picture is much more differentiated than Megginson and Netter suggest. Secondly, with regard to productivity and production cost, there is no support for the claim that private enterprises have better performance ceteris paribus than public enterprises.

“…In the empirical literature, the most applied non‐parametric method has been DEA (e.g. Worthington and Dollery ; Carvalho et al ; Simões and Marques ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the Optimal Size of Local Government: The Case of Tasmanian Councils

Marques

Kortt

Dollery³

2015

Aust J Public Adm

Self Cite

We estimated the optimal size of the most significant functions performed by Tasmanian councils between 1999 and 2008 using a non-parametric technique based on the shared input data envelopment analysis model. The principal advantage of this technique is that it not only provides an overall estimate of efficiency but it also allows for the estimation of 'partial efficiencies' and 'cost shares' when one input is shared among multiple outputs. Our results indicate that water supply and sewerage services, on average, were more efficient, whereas activities related to community health and safety and information systems warrant improvement. However, because the costs associated with water supply and sewerage services are considerably higher than the costs related to community health and safety and information systems, the elimination of these inefficiencies would result in greater cost savings for the Tasmanian local government sector.