This study examines whether the Japanese scheme of nontransferable water rights results in technical inefficiency. Using data on 1,263 Japanese retail water suppliers for 2008, their technical efficiency is measured employing data envelopment analysis. Next, a bootstrapped truncated regression...

This study empirically examines cost reductions in the Japanese sew- erage industry through mergers by modeling the costs of sewage disposal. The cost model is specified in a translog form, and treats capital as a quasi-fixed input. Employing the parameters estimated by the model, the long-run...