The electricity sector and in particular, its distribution activity has undergone profound reforms in the last 20 years in search of efficiency improvements. The implementation of the reforms varies significantly across the countries. Important differences are found in the regulatory method applied, the markets’ competitive conditions and the firms’ ownership of capital. The present study evaluates the importance of market competition, the firms’ public or private ownership and the regulatory method adopted as determinants of the firms’ productive efficiency. This is done by applying benchmarking techniques to a sample of 56 electricity distribution companies from developed and developing countries in the year 2000. The results indicate that firms which have to compete for its consumers are more efficient than firms which have captive consumers. In addition, firms where incentive regulation has been adopted -with the use of benchmarking techniques- and firms which are monitored by competition policy have lower distribution costs. Public firms appear as more efficient than private firms, but the hypothesis that public and private firms have the same distribution of efficiencies cannot be rejected.
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