IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/0423.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

‘Comparing Brazil and USA electricity performance; what was the impact of privatisation?’

Author

Listed:
  • Mota, R.L.

Abstract

Beginning in 1995 a large proportion of the Brazilian electricity distribution sector went through privatisation and restructuring, whereas privately-owned U.S. utilities did not suffer similar ownership change process. This paper is an empirical assessment of the efficiency of the Brazilian distribution sector relative to its U.S. counterpart in 1994 and 2000. Two techniques are applied: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), including the computation of Malmquist indices of productivity growth, and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). For the models that use operating costs as input, we find a positive but not statistically significant impact of Brazilian privatisation on technical efficiency. For the models that use total costs, the impact is significantly negative. Although this should be taken with caution, the negative impact can be the result of an investment surge after privatisation or of an increased rate of substitution of capital for labour in the Brazilian distribution sector. These results suggest that capital costs should not be excluded from the benchmarking. The findings also highlight the importance of establishing standard measures of capital costs for international benchmarking and incentive based regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mota, R.L., 2004. "‘Comparing Brazil and USA electricity performance; what was the impact of privatisation?’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0423, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0423
    Note: CMI39, IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/electricity/publications/wp/ep39.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schmidt, Peter & Lovell, C. A. Knox, 1980. "Estimating stochastic production and cost frontiers when technical and allocative inefficiency are correlated," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 83-100, May.
    2. Bagdadioglu, Necmiddin & Waddams Price, Catherine M. & Weyman-Jones, Thomas G., 1996. "Efficiency and ownership in electricity distribution: A non-parametric model of the Turkish experience," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 1-23, April.
    3. Paul L. Joskow, 2003. "The Difficult Transition to Competitive Electricity Markets in the U.S," Working Papers 0308, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
    4. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    5. Emili Grifell‐Tatjé & C. A. Knox Lovell, 2003. "The Managers versus the Consultants," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(1), pages 119-138, March.
    6. Pablo Serra & Ronald Fischer, 2000. "Regulating the Electricity Sector in Latin America," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2000), pages 155-218, August.
    7. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    8. Delmas, Magali & Tokat, Yesim, 2003. "Deregulation Process, Governance Structures and Efficiency: The U.S. Electric Utility Sector," Research Papers 1790, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Fare, R. & Grosskopf, S. & Logan, J., 1985. "The relative performance of publicly-owned and privately-owned electric utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 89-106, February.
    10. Kittelsen, S.A.C., 1993. "Stepwise DEA; Choosing Variables for Measuring Technical Efficiency in Norwegian Electricity Distribution," Memorandum 1993_006, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    11. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2000. "Benchmarking and regulation: international electricity experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 107-130, September.
    12. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    13. Yunos, Jamaluddin Mohd & Hawdon, David, 1997. "The efficiency of the National Electricity Board in Malaysia: An intercountry comparison using DEA," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 255-269, May.
    14. Pablo Arocena & Catherine Waddams Price, 1999. "Generating Efficiency: Economic and Environmental Regulation of Public and Private Electricity Generators in Spain," CIE Discussion Papers 1999-09, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Industrial Economics.
    15. Massimo Filippini, 1998. "Are Municipal Electricity Distribution Utilities Natural Monopolies?," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 157-174, June.
    16. John Whiteman, 1999. "The Potential Benefits of Hilmer and Related Reforms: Electricity Supply," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 32(1), pages 17-30, March.
    17. Paul L. Joskow, 2001. "California's Electricity Crisis," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(3), pages 365-388.
    18. Jondrow, James & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Materov, Ivan S. & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 233-238, August.
    19. Kumbhakar, Subal C., 1990. "Production frontiers, panel data, and time-varying technical inefficiency," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 201-211.
    20. Ali Emami Meibodi, 1998. "Efficiency Considerations in the Electricity Supply Industry; The Case of Iran," Surrey Energy Economics Centre (SEEC), School of Economics Discussion Papers (SEEDS) 95, Surrey Energy Economics Centre (SEEC), School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    21. Plane, Patrick, 1999. "Privatization, Technical Efficiency and Welfare Consequences: The Case of the Cote d'Ivoire Electricity Company (CIE)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 343-360, February.
    22. Hjalmarsson, Lennart & Veiderpass, Ann, 1992. " Productivity in Swedish Electricity Retail Distribution," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(0), pages 193-205, Supplemen.
    23. Irastorza, Veronica, 2003. "Benchmarking for Distribution Utilities: A Problematic Approach to Defining Efficiency," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(10), pages 30-38, December.
    24. Coelli, Tim & Perelman, Sergio, 1999. "A comparison of parametric and non-parametric distance functions: With application to European railways," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 326-339, September.
    25. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2001. "International Benchmarking and Yardstick Regulation: An Application to European Electricity Utilities," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0115, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    26. Denis Lawrence & John Houghton & Anna George, 1997. "International Comparisons of Australia's Infrastructure Performance," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 361-378, November.
    27. Rodríguez Pardina, Martín A. & Rossi, Martín, 2000. "Technical Change and Catching-up: The Electricity Distribution Sector in South America," UADE Working Papers 11_2000, Instituto de Economía, Universidad Argentina de la Empresa.
    28. Resende, Marcelo, 2002. "Relative efficiency measurement and prospects for yardstick competition in Brazilian electricity distribution," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 637-647, June.
    29. Berry, Dan Michael, 1994. "Private Ownership Form and Productive Efficiency: Electric Cooperatives versus Investor-Owned Utilities," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 399-420, December.
    30. Burns, Philip & Weyman-Jones, Thomas G, 1996. "Cost Functions and Cost Efficiency in Electricity Distribution: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 41-64, January.
    31. Preetum Domah, 2002. "Technical efficiency in electricity generation - the impact of smallness and isolation of island economies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0232, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    32. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Logan, James, 1983. "The relative efficiency of Illinois electric utilities," Resources and Energy, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 349-367, December.
    33. Cornwell, Christopher & Schmidt, Peter & Sickles, Robin C., 1990. "Production frontiers with cross-sectional and time-series variation in efficiency levels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 185-200.
    34. Førsund, Finn R. & Kittelsen, Sverre A. C., 1998. "Productivity development of Norwegian electricity distribution utilities," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 207-224, September.
    35. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2003. "International benchmarking and regulation: an application to European electricity distribution utilities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(15), pages 1609-1622, December.
    36. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2007. "Incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks: Lessons of experience from Britain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6163-6187, December.
    2. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda R. Timilsina, 2017. "A Quarter Century Effort Yet to Come of Age: A Survey of Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    3. Ramos-Real, Francisco Javier & Tovar, Beatriz & Iootty, Mariana & de Almeida, Edmar Fagundes & Pinto Jr., Helder Queiroz, 2009. "The evolution and main determinants of productivity in Brazilian electricity distribution 1998-2005: An empirical analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 298-305, March.
    4. Nepal, Rabindra & Foster, John, 2015. "Electricity networks privatization in Australia: An overview of the debate," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 12-24.
    5. Mirza, Faisal Mehmood & Mushtaq, Iqra & Ullah, Kafait, 2017. "Assessing the efficiency dynamics of post reforms electric distribution utilities in Pakistan," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 18-28.
    6. Machiel Mulder & Victoria Shestalova & Mark Lijesen, 2005. "Vertical separation of the energy-distribution industry; an assessment of several options for unbundling," CPB Document 84.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Machiel Mulder & Victoria Shestalova & Mark Lijesen, 2005. "Vertical separation of the energy-distribution industry; an assessment of several options for unbundling," CPB Document 84, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    8. Karim L. Anaya & Michael G. Pollitt, 2014. "Does Weather Have an Impact on Electricity Distribution Efficiency? Evidence from South America," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1424, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. See, Kok Fong & Coelli, Tim, 2012. "An analysis of factors that influence the technical efficiency of Malaysian thermal power plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 677-685.
    10. Tim Coelli & Denis Lawrence (ed.), 2006. "Performance Measurement and Regulation of Network Utilities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3801.
    11. Jamasb, Tooraj, 2006. "Between the state and market: Electricity sector reform in developing countries," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 14-30, March.
    12. Rocha, Katia & Camacho, Fernando & Braganca, Gabriel, 2007. "Return on capital of Brazilian electricity distributors: A comparative analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2526-2537, April.
    13. Dimitri Dimitropoulos and Adonis Yatchew, 2017. "Is Productivity Growth in Electricity Distribution Negative? An Empirical Analysis Using Ontario Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    14. Tovar, Beatriz & Javier Ramos-Real, Francisco & de Almeida, Edmar Fagundes, 2011. "Firm size and productivity. Evidence from the electricity distribution industry in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 826-833, February.
    15. Pollitt, Michael & Stern, Jon, 2011. "Human resource constraints for electricity regulation in developing countries: Developments since 2001," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 53-60, June.
    16. Lins, Marcos Pereira Estellita & Sollero, Maria Karla Vervloet & Caloba, Guilherme Marques & da Silva, Angela Cristina Moreira, 2007. "Integrating the regulatory and utility firm perspectives, when measuring the efficiency of electricity distribution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(3), pages 1413-1424, September.
    17. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda Timilsina & Michael Toman, 2014. "Energy Sector Reform, Economic Efficiency and Poverty Reduction," Discussion Papers Series 529, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. Jamasb,Tooraj & Nepal,Rabindra & Timilsina,Govinda R., 2015. "A quarter century effort yet to come of age : a survey of power sector reforms in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7330, The World Bank.
    19. Anaya, Karim L. & Pollitt, Michael G., 2017. "Using stochastic frontier analysis to measure the impact of weather on the efficiency of electricity distribution businesses in developing economies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(3), pages 1078-1094.
    20. Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2012. "Reforming small electricity systems under political instability: The case of Nepal," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 242-251.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2000. "Benchmarking and regulation: international electricity experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 107-130, September.
    2. Christian von Hirschhausen & Astrid Cullmann & Andreas Kappeler, 2006. "Efficiency analysis of German electricity distribution utilities - non-parametric and parametric tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(21), pages 2553-2566.
    3. Tim Coelli & Denis Lawrence (ed.), 2006. "Performance Measurement and Regulation of Network Utilities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3801.
    4. Antonio Estache & Sergio Perelman & Lourdes Trujillo, 2006. "Infrastructure Reform in Developing Economies: Evidence from a survey of efficiency measures," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/44062, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    6. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Gudbrand Lien, 2017. "Yardstick Regulation of Electricity Distribution Disentangling Short-run and Long-run Inefficiencies," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    7. Sickles, Robin C. & Song, Wonho & Zelenyuk, Valentin, 2018. "Econometric Analysis of Productivity: Theory and Implementation in R," Working Papers 18-008, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    8. Dimitri Dimitropoulos and Adonis Yatchew, 2017. "Is Productivity Growth in Electricity Distribution Negative? An Empirical Analysis Using Ontario Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    9. Xie, Bai-Chen & Ni, Kang-Kang & O'Neill, Eoghan & Li, Hong-Zhou, 2021. "The scale effect in China's power grid sector from the perspective of malmquist total factor productivity analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Iglesias, Guillermo & Castellanos, Pablo & Seijas, Amparo, 2010. "Measurement of productive efficiency with frontier methods: A case study for wind farms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1199-1208, September.
    11. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2001. "Benchmarking and Regulation of Electricity Transmission and Distribution Utilities: Lessons from International Experience," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0101, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Luis R. Murillo-Zamorano & Juan Vega-Cervera, "undated". "The Use of Parametric and Non Parametric Frontier Methods to Measure the Productive Efficiency in the Industrial Sector. A Comparative Study," Discussion Papers 00/17, Department of Economics, University of York.
    13. San Cristóbal, José Ramón, 2011. "A multi criteria data envelopment analysis model to evaluate the efficiency of the Renewable Energy technologies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2742-2746.
    14. Per J. Agrell & Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & Martin Koller, 2013. "Unobserved heterogeneous effects in the cost efficiency analysis of electricity distribution systems," Working Papers 0038, Swiss Economics.
    15. Hakan Güneş & Dilem Yıldırım, 2016. "Estimating Cost Efficiency of Turkish Commercial Banks under Unobserved Heterogeneity with Stochastic Frontier Models," ERC Working Papers 1603, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Mar 2016.
    16. Murillo-Zamorano, Luis R. & Vega-Cervera, Juan A., 2001. "The use of parametric and non-parametric frontier methods to measure the productive efficiency in the industrial sector: A comparative study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 265-275, February.
    17. Li, Ming-Jia & Tao, Wen-Quan, 2017. "Review of methodologies and polices for evaluation of energy efficiency in high energy-consuming industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 203-215.
    18. Quang Nguyen & Sean Pascoe & Louisa Coglan & Son Nghiem, 2021. "The sensitivity of efficiency scores to input and other choices in stochastic frontier analysis: an empirical investigation," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 31-40, February.
    19. Azadeh, A. & Ghaderi, S.F. & Omrani, H. & Eivazy, H., 2009. "An integrated DEA-COLS-SFA algorithm for optimization and policy making of electricity distribution units," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2605-2618, July.
    20. Christian Growitsch & Tooraj Jamasb & Michael Pollitt, 2009. "Quality of service, efficiency and scale in network industries: an analysis of European electricity distribution," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(20), pages 2555-2570.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    benchmarking; international comparison; technical efficiency; Data Envelopment Analysis; Stochastic Frontier Analysis; Malmquist Productivity Index; electricity distribution systems;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.