The performance of German water utilities: A (semi)-parametric analysis

Arbeitspapier

Germany's water supply industry is characterized by a multitude of utilities and widely diverging prices, possibly resulting from structural differences beyond the control of firms' management, but also from inefficiencies. In this article we use Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis to determine the utilities' technical efficiency scores based on cross-sectional data from 373 public and private water utilities in 2006. We find large differences in technical efficiency scores even after accounting for significant structural variables like network density, share of groundwater usage and water losses.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: DIW Discussion Papers ; No. 1118

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities ; Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General ; Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water
• Subject: water supply ; technical efficiency ; Data Envelopment Analysis ; Stochastic Frontier Analysis ; structural variables ; bootstrapped truncated regression ; Wasserwirtschaft ; Technische Effizienz ; Data-Envelopment-Analyse ; Schätzung ; Deutschland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Zschille, Michael ; Walter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/55285
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET