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1.
Profitability and productivity change over time are two key indicators to evaluate the performance of water companies. In this study, the profit inefficiency of water utilities was estimated based on the Luenberger Productivity Indicator (LPI). The empirical approach focused on the English and Welsh water industry from 2001 to 2018. It was illustrated that water companies suffered a profit inefficiency effect of 50%, mainly (44%) attributed to allocation inefficiency, whereas technical inefficiency contributed by 6%. Estimated profit LPI values revealed the impact of the price reviews on the profit productivity of the English and Welsh water companies. 相似文献
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《Urban Water Journal》2013,10(7):626-635
ABSTRACTInterest in evaluating productivity changes in water companies has increased in recent years. In this paper, for the first time, we employ the Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen Productivity Indicator (LHMPI) to evaluate productivity changes in a sample of Chilean water companies from 2010 to 2016. Productivity change estimations obtained by both the Luenberger Productivity Indicator (LPI) and the LHMPI are compared. Moreover, both indicators were computed assuming constant and variable returns to scale technologies. The LHMPI estimates illustrate that productivity in Chilean water companies has slightly improved over the period studied due to the positive trend of outputs, whereas the inputs negatively contributed to productivity changes. Results from the empirical analysis enabled us to verify that the LHMPI and LPI (and their drivers) are statistically different. This conclusion illustrates that water regulators need to pay attention to the indicators used when assessing productivity changes in water companies. 相似文献
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The objective of this study is to assess the efficiency of Russian water utilities based on a set of characteristic indicators. The novelty of the research is in the application of tools of the theory of economic “growth points” for analyzing water utility performance. The generalized development of a water utility is defined in terms of the efficiency of external and internal resources use. Conclusions on the development of water utilities in the six regional administrative centers of Siberia (Barnaul, Chita, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tomsk) in the 2013–2016 period were made. 相似文献
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This research aims to evaluate the main determinants of real water loss per unit length of the network in the Portuguese water sector, using data covering a 10-year period. The governance model, typology of the area, type of service, management model, total water conveyed, and total network length were found to be statistically significant determinants. The methodology employed Generalized Linear Models and Artificial Neural Networks, confirming the existence of interactions and non-linearity. From a public policy perspective, setting water loss targets based only on two variables - area typology and type of service – is not a robust approach. 相似文献
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Caring for biodiversity is a significant challenge for companies worldwide. The role of water utilities in this context is pivotal: as key actors in providing core services while balancing the interests of the many stakeholders interested in their activity, water utilities are adopting different accounting tools to increase their accountability. To understand the motivations and to explore the mechanisms underlying water utilities' biodiversity accountability practices, a case study is developed. Findings reveal how normative isomorphism, and coercive requirements, is driving water utilities accountability. Also, the study reveals the centrality of integrated reporting and alternative accounting practices for disclosing on biodiversity. 相似文献
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This study asks whether different types of water systems serve different types of communities and differ with respect to affordability. Using 2017 data for California we match service area boundaries with census income data and rate structures to compare the geography, income distribution and affordability of water rates within communities served by systems of different ownership types. We find that for-profit and publicly owned systems serve communities of similar income distributions, while not-for-profit mutual water companies serve higher-income communities. Regulated privately-owned systems charge more for water while providing more low-income assistance and shutting off fewer households than publicly owned systems. 相似文献
7.
Identifying the service providers that perform best in key operational indicators is important for increasing the sustainability of the wastewater treatment sector. Wastewater reuse is increasingly considered as a relevant aspect in this context. The current study first identifies the Portuguese service providers in the efficiency frontier regarding wastewater reuse and proceeds to identify its main operational drivers. Reused wastewater was then successfully estimated using the selected drivers. The main policy recommendations, resulting from this study, towards wastewater reuse upsurge include fostering the aggregation of smaller SP to benefit from economies of scale, and strive for adequate infrastructure maintenance practices. 相似文献
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New long-term planning approaches capable of coping with uncertainties such as climate change, rapid urbanization, and changing societal values, have been put forward as a way of producing more robust and sustainable plans for the future. But is the planning practice ready for their adoption? This paper takes four key propositions from the adaptive planning literature and tests the existing capacity for adopting those propositions in the context of Chilean water utilities. We will then propose how existing capacities could be enhanced, and propose alternatives for current planning practices, highlighting the importance of implementation through experimentation. 相似文献
9.
This study analyzes the effect of governance structure on the tariff levels applied by Brazilian corporations of water supply and sanitation. It aims to contribute to the traditional debate of public versus private management, and to determine the effect of regulatory structure on tariff levels. The results first show that, when jointly considered, the water supply and sanitation tariff levels are higher for privately managed corporations. Second, we have found that a corporation regulated by a local agency or a regional agency does not exhibit significantly lower tariff levels than unregulated corporations. Finally, the results indicate that the use of the rate of return and price cap/revenue cap regimes do not provide tariff levels lower than those set via negotiation with the municipality. 相似文献
10.
Unclear roles and responsibilities and other factors related to organisational design, have been found to be some of the common barriers to providing good urban water services in developing countries. A comparative study commissioned by the World Bank in 2013 assessed how five well-performing water utilities located in different parts of the world aligned their organisational structures and management systems with their strategies and the operating environment. Lessons therefrom can be adapted for organisational (re)design of water utilities, for their improved performance, subject to enabling factors in the individual organisation's operating environment. 相似文献
11.
This paper proposes a financial evaluation of the investment in SMARTechs in wastewater companies. SMARTechs are innovative technologies that enable companies to work toward the circular economy approach, thanks to allowing the development of by-products from wastewater. A simulation of the financial impact of the SMARTech introduction was conducted based on the Italian tariff system. It is performed assuming two different scenarios. These relate to a market's presence (or absence) for the by-products resulting from the application of SMARTechs. The results show that investing in these technologies provides both financial and environmental benefits. 相似文献
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In Italy recently the regulatory authority for electricity, gas and the water industry was mandated to design a new tariff method more consistent with EU standards of ‘full cost recovery’ and the ‘polluter pays’ rules. This paper attempts to highlight the strengths and limitations of this new method, its actual effects on tariffs, financial plans and utilities' investment policy, compared to the previous method, with a focus on the effects of the tariff method for both users and utilities. A case study was selected and this included the biggest water utility controlled by the local water authority in Verona province. 相似文献
13.
The water sector has signalled the need to advance organisational and social resilience efforts. There is a lack of understanding of whether the organisational environment in water utilities is conducive to organisational resilience. Themes from interviews showcased challenges related to cognitive and contextual organisational properties. We identified a need to broaden the cognitive frame of utilities to account for flexible concepts of enhanced sense-making. We propose categories of organisational silos and a set of cultural attributes that contribute to organisational resilience. Interventions are needed to develop the cognitive, behavioural, and contextual properties of utilities that support organisational resilience. 相似文献
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15.
Productivity and efficiency in the water industry 总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2
Over the past twenty years there has been increasing interest in the productivity and efficiency of, and the optimal structures for, the water supply and wastewater industries. In part this interest has manifested itself in the increased use of numerous statistical techniques to determine the productivity and efficiency of the water sector in a variety of countries. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First it briefly reviews the various measures that have been used to gauge the levels of productivity and efficiency in the water sector, with particular reference to input and output data requirements of these measures. Second it summarises the key structural findings that have been determined from this research, particularly with respect to economies of scale and scope, public versus private ownership and the impact of regulation. Third, it considers potential areas for potential future research, such as the effect of environmental management activities (including water conservation) and regulation on productivity and efficiency, the role of wastewater as a potential source of potable or ‘fit-for-purpose’ water and the relationship between water supply and urban planning. 相似文献
16.
It is conventional wisdom that poor households use less water than rich households, and intuition suggests that an increasing block tariff with a lifeline block will target subsidies to poor households. In this paper we provide a simple diagnostic tool that a water utility can use to estimate the distribution of subsidies to households in different income quintiles and to check whether this intuition about the incidence of subsidies is correct in a specific local service area. The results of our illustrative simulations calibrated using data from low- and medium-income countries, show that subsidies delivered through the most common tariff structures are very poorly targeted to poor households. This finding holds regardless of the specific characteristics of the tariff structure used to calculate households’ water bills. We also find that the higher the correlation between household income and water use, the lower the proportion of total subsidies received by poor households. 相似文献
17.
In Italy's water industry, publicly owned utilities (PWCs) coexist with public-private partnerships (PPPWCs), that could contribute expertise for operations, funds, and relationships. This paper examines the effect of ownership structures on efficiency by comparing Veneto (with almost all PWCs) and Tuscany (with almost all PPPWCs). This comparison is highly debated, with possible economic, social, environmental, and political implications. A Data Envelopment Analysis approach, that uses both quantitative and qualitative variables to represent the lack of service quality, was adopted. Results suggest that PWCs perform slightly better when quality issues are excluded, while PPPWCs perform better when considering both variable types. 相似文献
18.
There are many different ways to regulate water utilities. By focusing almost exclusively on regulatory agencies, the literature has missed important alternatives regarding the mechanisms through which the general rules of the game, defined at the macro-institutional level, interact with operators organizing transactions at the micro-level. Building on recent developments in organization theory and on the distinction between property rights and decision rights, this paper explores the variety of arrangements, identified as ‘meso-institutions,’ providing these links. The analysis is substantiated through a comparative approach to the drinkable water systems in France, England and Whales, and the Netherlands. 相似文献
19.
Public water systems across the U.S. are required to annually issue a water quality report (more formally, consumer confidence report or CCR) and make it publicly accessible. CCRs are ineffective at communicating risk and safety information to the customers for several reasons: they are hard to find and poorly advertised, present complex scientific data at a high reading level, and are written predominantly in English. In this paper, we analyze a representative sample of 268 CCRs to measure their accessibility along three dimensions: adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 standards, their Flesch Reading Ease score, and the availability of translation to non-English languages. Our analysis found that water utilities of all sizes, customer demographics, and geographic locations scored poorly on each measure of accessibility. However, accessibility scores were correlated with utility size, racial composition, and the presence of bilingual speakers. As one of the few mandated non-crisis communication to customers, CCRs present a meaningful opportunity for water systems to share information about water quality, public health, and community concerns. Accessible and easy-to-understand CCRs can achieve all that and build customer trust. 相似文献
20.
This article analyses the effects of ownership, board size and composition on the performance of 72 Italian water utilities. Information about the utilities' 335 directors was collected. Our main findings indicate that private or mixed-ownership utilities show higher profitability than entirely publicly-owned firms, even if the latter are less debt-dependent. Furthermore, our results show that the boards of Italian water utilities are dominated by politically connected directors, who boost access to debt and negatively affect the firms' capital structures. This study also shows that board composition, in terms of the age and educational background of members, influences economic performance, since graduate and senior directors exert a negative influence on profitability. 相似文献