Estimating the Relative Efficiency of Brazilian Publicly and Privately Owned Water Utilities: A Stochastic Cost Frontier Approach

• Published in: Journal of the American Water Resources Association Vol. 43; no. 5; pp. 1237 - 1244
• Main Authors: Da Silva e Souza, Geraldo, De Faria, Ricardo Coelho, Moreira, Tito Belchior S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2007; American Water Resources Association
• Subjects: Brazil; cost efficiency; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Hydrology. Hydrogeology; privatization; R15; R38; stochastic frontier analysis; Water resources; water utilities; Brazil; South America; models; efficiency; cost; water utilities; water supply; water; stochastic frontier analysis; companies; stochastic models; privatization; maximum likelihood; water resource management; Brazil; cost efficiency

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 parameters...