This paper assesses cost efficiencies of Brazilian public and private companies of water supply. To measure the efficiency, we used a stochastic frontier model derived from the translog family – a specification similar to a Cobb-Douglas including a quadratic term in log output. The model...

This paper examines the robustness of efficiency score rankings across four distributional assumptions for trans-log stochastic production-frontier models, using data from 1,221 Japanese water utilities (for 2004 and 2005). One-sided error terms considered include the half-normal, truncated...

The purpose of this paper is the evaluation of various profit drivers such as price changes, productivity changes and quality levels on the financial performance of the Water and Sewerage Companies (WaSCs) over time in the case when the number of observations is limited. We thereby follow...

High levels of investment in relation to cash flows, combined with high dividend payouts, have caused UK water companies persistently to borrow to meet their cash outflows. This behaviour is not adequately explained by mainstream theories of dividends. The intensive regulatory environment has...

We argue that the concession contracts in the Italian water sector may have been shaped by the very local circumstances. In turn, different contract designs may have influenced the aptitude of bidding companies. To investigate these issues, we assemble an original dataset and two composite...

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three 'pillars' of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different...

Cities generate negative, as well as positive, externalities; addressing those externalities requires both infrastructure and institutions. Providing clean water and removing refuse requires water and sewer pipes, but the urban poor are often unwilling to pay for the costs of that piping....