Water markets with market power are analysed as multi-market Cournot competition in which the river structure constrains access to local markets and limited resources impose capacity constraints. Conditions for uniqueness are identified. Lerner indices are larger under binding resource...

Whereas a large number of empirical studies have been devoted to analyzing determinants of environmental compliance (EC) by firms, less attention has been paid to EC by public water systems (PWS). To address this gap in the literature, this article uses data on compliance with maximum...

The paper assesses the potential role for economic instruments in the regulation of water pollution and abstraction in the light of the UK government?s discussion documents. Economic instruments offer the potential for greater cost efficiency in achieving environmental targets than existing...

Yardstick regulation requires the utilization of benchmarking, a valuable tool for improving the public service delivery, especially in developing countries where inefficiencies translate into negative health impacts and social unrest. However, research must account for both cost and quality of...

This paper analyzes the conduct of publicly owned monopolistic utilities regulated by a voluntary sunshine regulatory model (i.e. publication of the performances of utilities). In particular, we examine the behaviour of Dutch drinking water utilities before and after the introduction of the...

Environmental factors add complexity to the comparison between specific activities or entire entities. Decision making units with an inferior performance are tempted to invoke that their organization is different from the others in the data set. By reinterpreting and extending the metafrontier...