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Productivity in Electricity Retail after Market Liberalisation: Analysing the Effects of Ownership and Firm's Governance Structure

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  • Caroline Stiel
  • Astrid Cullmann
  • Maria Nieswand

Abstract

This paper, which is one of the first to estimate productivity in retail electricity for a European country after liberalisation, analyses the effect of ownership and governance structure by using a unique dataset of German electricity retailers from 2003 to 2012. An innovative service production function for the retail sector is derived with labour and external services as the main inputs. A structural model is used with a proxy function for productivity to overcome the endogeneity of input choice. Ownership is controlled for in the law of motion for productivity. The results of the dataset used to validate the model show that firm-level productivity did not increase after 2008 and that ownership had no effect on productivity. The results provide useful insights into the link between ownership and productivity in modern public enterprises after liberalisation.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline Stiel & Astrid Cullmann & Maria Nieswand, 2015. "Productivity in Electricity Retail after Market Liberalisation: Analysing the Effects of Ownership and Firm's Governance Structure," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1531, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1531
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; structural production function; electricity retail; ownership; governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities

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