Estimating the Relative Efficiency of Brazilian Publicly and Privately Owned Water Utilities: A Stochastic Cost Frontier Approach1

:  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 paramete...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal 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
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2007
Subjects
Brazil
cost efficiency
Economic models
Efficiency
privatization
R15
R38
stochastic frontier analysis
Studies
Water supply
Water utilities
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Summary::  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 are estimated by maximum likelihood using Brazilian data for the year 2002. Statistical inference leads to the conclusion that there is no evidence that private firms and public firms are significantly different in terms of efficiency measurements.
Bibliography:Discussions are open until April 1, 2008
(JAWRA).
Paper No. J05106 of the
Journal of the American Water Resourses Association
.
ISSN:1093-474X
1752-1688
DOI:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00106.x