Does yardstick regulation really work? Empirical evidence from Japan’s rail industry

Mizutani, Fumitoshi; Kozumi, Hideo; Matsushima, Noriaki

doi:10.1007/s11149-009-9097-0

Cited by 28 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Some studies analyze the cost efficiency change due to regulatory reform, one form of governmental intervention, by using the stochastic cost frontier function (e.g. Kleit and Tecrell 2001;Mizutani et al 2009). Also, theoretical studies have been done which construct the relationship between governmental intervention and the costs of a firm (e.g.…”

Section: Regulation As Governmental Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nowell and Shogren 1994), incentive regulation (e.g. Berg and Jeong 1991;Vogelsang 2002;Mizutani et al 2009;Ter-Martirosyan and Kwoka 2010), and price regulation (e.g. Cabral and Riordan 1989;Bös and Peters 1995;Vogelsang 2002), or focusing on specific industries: the energy industry (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nelson and Wohar 1983;Majumdar and Marcus 2001), rail (e.g. Mizutani et al 2009), and postal service (e.g. Mizutani and Uranishi 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan

Mizutani

Nakamura

2016

Econ Polit Ind

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how governance factors affect technical inefficiency in public utility firms. Inefficiency analysis in public utilities so far has focused mainly on industry-level treatments such as competition policy and regulations. However, since these industry-level treatments incur significant government costs and are difficult to monitor closely, management-level corporate governance, which has been widely discussed in private firms, has been attracting increased attention in recent years. In our analysis, we examine the effects of various shareholders as governance actors on technical inefficiency in public utilities. By using a panel data of 369 Japanese firms in seven public utilities from 1989 to 2015, we estimate the stochastic frontier production function. The main findings are as follows: (1) some governance factors clearly reduce inefficiency; as ownership by domestic companies and individual shareholders increases, the technical inefficiency of a public utility firm decreases. (2) However, we cannot determine the effects of foreign shareholders and financial institutions. These actors can have different effects depending on the situation. (3) Industry-level factors such as regulation and competition are shown to increase inefficiency. This indicates that conventional industry-level involvement is no longer effective in public utilities and & Fumitoshi Mizutani that in the efficiency analysis more attention must be paid to the managerial improvement of public utilities.

show abstract

Section: Regulation As Governmental Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan

Mizutani

Nakamura

2016

Econ Polit Ind

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The yardstick regulation with multiple regression analysis was implemented for fifteen large private railway companies, six JRs and ten subways in 1997, while it was not applied to small private railway companies. Mizutani et al (2009) estimated the variable frontier cost function by using data set of large and small private railway companies. They found that large railways to which the yardstick regulation was applied could have improved cost efficiency by 11.5% between 1995 and 2000.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yardstick regulation and the operators' productivity of railway industry in Japan

Mizutani

Usami

2016

Research in Transportation Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Japan, the yardstick regulation was implemented as an incentive only for large private railway companies, in 1997. This study examined the effects of yardstick regulation on productivity of private railway companies by comparing TFP (Total Factor Productivity) of a large private railway group with that of a small private railway group in Kansai metropolitan area. We interpreted a railway's service to conduct the stratified 3T activities; Track, Train and Transport and estimated TFP for individual and total 3T activities. Estimation results showed that both railway groups had increased their TFP of total 3T activities contributed by productivity improvements of track and train activities since 1997. On the other hand, we could not find obvious evidences to show that the yardstick regulation for large railway companies had generated productivity improvements compared with small railway companies to which the traditional rate of return regulation is applied.

show abstract

“…Analizirajući efekte komparativne regulacije Mizutani i ostali [15] su pronašli da su, u Japanu u periodu od 1995. do 2000. godine, železnice na kojima je primenjen ovakav oblike regulacije povećale svoju troškovnu efikasnost za oko 11,5%.…”

unclassified

Forms and instruments of the market regulation of railway infrastructure

Bošković¹,

Bugarinovic̀²,

Petrović-Vujačić³

et al. 2014

Tehnika

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Does yardstick regulation really work? Empirical evidence from Japan’s rail industry

Abstract: Yardstick regulation, Incentive regulation, Efficiency, Cost frontier function, L51, L53, L90, K23,

Cited by 28 publications

References 26 publications

How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan

How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan

Yardstick regulation and the operators' productivity of railway industry in Japan

Forms and instruments of the market regulation of railway infrastructure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About