The efficiency effects of merging Italian water companies

Titolo Rivista ECONOMIA E DIRITTO DEL TERZIARIO
Autori/Curatori Clementina Bruno, Fabrizio Erbetta, Giovanni Fraquelli, Anna Giolitti
Anno di pubblicazione 2015 Fascicolo 2014/3 Lingua Italiano
Numero pagine 18 P. 425-442 Dimensione file 118 KB
DOI 10.3280/ED2014-003006
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

The Italian water sector is highly fragmented. Legislative reforms proposed during time tried to steer the industry towards greater consolidation of the service suppliers. The underlying consideration is that an increase in operational scale can generate potential improvements in efficiency and hence a reduction in tariffs. Using the methodology Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), this paper investigates, for the first time on the Italian case, the potential gains or losses associated with merger plans between companies within regional territories. The results generally indicate potential efficiency gains achievable at the individual levels. A positive "pure" effect due to merger seems to hold when very small companies are involved, even if the on average merger itself does not seem to play a significant role.;

Keywords:Water industry, DEA, bootstrapping, merger.

Jel codes:K23, L25, L95.

  1. Autorità per l’energia elettrica il gas e il sistema idrico, Seconda Conferenza Nazionale sulla Regolazione dei Servizi Idrici, Milan, 2013.
  2. Autorità per l’energia elettrica il gas e il sistema idrico, Terza Conferenza Nazionale sulla Regolazione dei Servizi Idrici, Milan, 2014.
  3. Ballance, T., Saal, D., Reid, S., Investigation into evidence for economies of scale in the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales, London, Stone & Webster Consultants, 2004.
  4. Bogetoft, P., Otto, L. Benchmarking with DEA, SFA, and R, in «International Series in Operations Research And Management Science», New York, Springer, 2011.
  5. Bogetoft, P., Wang, D., Estimating the Potential Gains from Mergers, in «Journal of Productivity Analysis», 23, 2005, pp. 145-171.
  6. Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., Rhodes, E., Measuring the efficiency of decision making units, in «European Journal of Operational Research», 2, 1978, pp. 429-444.
  7. De Witte, K., Dijkgraaf, E., Mean and bold? On separating merger economies from structural efficiency gains in the drinking water sector, in «Journal of the Operational Research Society», 61(2), 2010, pp. 222-234.
  8. Muraro, G., La faticosa riforma dei servizi idrici, www.lavoce.info, 2005.
  9. Saal, D., Arocena, P., Maziotis, A., Triebs, T., Scale and scope economies and the efficient vertical and horizontal configuration of the water industry: a survey of the literature, in «Review of Network Economics», 12(1), 2013, pp. 93-129.
  10. Simar, L., Wilson, W., A general methodology for bootstrapping in non-parametric frontier models, in «Journal of Applied Statistics», 27(6), 2000, pp. 779-802.
  11. Thanassoulis, E., The use of Data Envelopment Analysis in the regulation of UK water utilities: water distribution, in «European Journal of Operating research», 126, 2000, pp. 436-453.
  12. Urakami, T., Parker, D., The effects of consolidation amongst Japanese water utilities: a hedonic cost function analysis, in «Urban Studies», 48(13), 2011, pp. 2805-2825. Walter, M., Cullmann, A., “Potential gains from mergers in local public transport: an efficiency analysis applied to Germany”, Discussions Paper DIW Berlin, 2008, p. 832.
  13. Walter, M., Cullmann, A., Von Hirschhausen, C., Wand, R., Zschille, M., Quo vadis efficiency analysis of water distribution? A comparative literature review, in «Utilities Policy», 17(3-4), 2009, pp. 225-232.
  14. Zschille, M., Consolidating the Water industry: An analysis of the Potential Gains from Horizontal integration in a Conditional Efficiency Framework, in «Journal of Productivity Analysis», DOI: 10.1007/s11123-014-0407-x,201

  • Efficiency in the Consolidation of the Italian Water Sector Graziano Abrate, Clementina Bruno, Fabrizio Erbetta, Giovanni Fraquelli, Anna Giolitti, in Water Resources Management /2017 pp.2447
    DOI: 10.1007/s11269-016-1376-9

Clementina Bruno, Fabrizio Erbetta, Giovanni Fraquelli, Anna Giolitti, The efficiency effects of merging Italian water companies in "ECONOMIA E DIRITTO DEL TERZIARIO " 3/2014, pp 425-442, DOI: 10.3280/ED2014-003006