IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eec/wpaper/1101.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

The public choice of urban water service management: a multi-criteria approach

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Ruiz-Villaverde

    (Departamento de Economía Aplicada. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Campus de Cartuja, s/n, 18071. GRANADA)

  • Francisco Gónzalez-Gómez

    (Departamento de Economía Aplicada. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Campus de Cartuja, s/n, 18071. GRANADA)

Abstract

Local governments have to take decisions in increasingly complex contexts. Among other decisions, in countries where it is permitted by the legal framework, local policymakers have to choose the type of management of local public services. The importance of the urban water service and the variety of criteria to be considered in the management choice make it advisable that local government should consider the existing tools to rationalize the decision-making. Different Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) facilitates decision-making processes in situations where several criteria must be taken into account. This paper applies an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze the decision on the urban water service management in Granada, city in southern Spain. An assessment through an ex-post analysis is aimed to conclude whether the choice was appropriate and, therefore, whether or not the City Council should reconsider its past decision. The main conclusion is that the decision was consistent.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Ruiz-Villaverde & Francisco Gónzalez-Gómez, 2011. "The public choice of urban water service management: a multi-criteria approach," Working Papers 1101, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    • Handle: RePEc:eec:wpaper:1101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repecsrv.uv.es/paper/RePEc/pdf/eec_1101.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, December.
    2. Claude Ménard & Stéphane Saussier, 2000. "Contractual Choice and Performance the Case of Water Supply in France," Revue d'Économie Industrielle, Programme National Persée, vol. 92(1), pages 385-404.
    3. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Andrey Timofeev, 2008. "A fiscal perspective of state rescaling," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(1), pages 85-105.
    4. Bel Germà & Fageda Xavier & E. Mildred, 2014. "Is private production of public services cheaper than public production? A meta-regression analysis of solid waste and water services," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 103-140.
    5. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2001. "Partial Privatization and Incomplete Contracts: The Proper Scope of Government Reconsidered," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 57(4), pages 394-411, August.
    6. Crain, W Mark & Zardkoohi, Asghar, 1978. "A Test of the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm: Water Utilities in the United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 395-408, October.
    7. Saaty, Thomas L., 1990. "How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 9-26, September.
    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. Ruiz-Villaverde, Alberto & Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. & González-Gómez, Francisco, 2015. "The ‘social choice’ of privatising urban water services: A case study of Madrid in Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 616-629.
    2. O. Flores Baquero & J. Gallego-Ayala & R. Giné-Garriga & A. Jiménez-Fernández. Palencia & A. Pérez-Foguet, 2017. "The Influence of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Normative Content in Measuring the Level of Service," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 763-786, September.

    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. Ruiz-Villaverde, Alberto & Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. & González-Gómez, Francisco, 2015. "The ‘social choice’ of privatising urban water services: A case study of Madrid in Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 616-629.
    2. Alessandro Marra, 2006. "Mixed Public-Private Enterprises in Europe: Economic Theory and an Empirical Analysis of Italian Water Utilities," Bruges European Economic Research Papers 4, European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe.
    3. N.F. Cruz & R.C. Marques & A. Marra & C. Pozzi, 2014. "Local Mixed Companies: The Theory And Practice In An International Perspective," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 1-9, March.
    4. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Joan Calzada, 2010. "Urban transport governance reform in Barcelona," IREA Working Papers 201009, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jun 2010.
    5. Peeter Peda & Giuseppe Grossi & Margo Liik, 2013. "Do ownership and size affect the performance of water utilities? Evidence from Estonian municipalities," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 17(2), pages 237-259, May.
    6. Miguel A. García-Rubio & Francisco González-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola, 2009. "Performance and ownership in the governance of urban water," FEG Working Paper Series 09/03, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    7. da Cruz, Nuno F. & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2013. "Mixed companies as local utilities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59761, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Bel Germà & Fageda Xavier & E. Mildred, 2014. "Is private production of public services cheaper than public production? A meta-regression analysis of solid waste and water services," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 103-140.
    9. Francisco González-Gómez & Miguel García‐Rubio & Francisco Alcalá-Olid & M. Ortega-Díaz, 2013. "Outsourcing and Efficiency in the Management of Rural Water Services," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(3), pages 731-747, February.
    10. Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha & Berg, Sanford, 2012. "A meta-regression analysis of benchmarking studies on water utilities market structure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 40-49.
    11. Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira & Maria A. García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez, 2009. "Does Private Management of Water Supply Services Really Increase Prices? An Empirical Analysis in Spain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(4), pages 923-945, April.
    12. Sowby, Robert B., 2018. "Comparison of operational energy requirements in publicly and privately owned U.S. water utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 92-95.
    13. Kanazawa, Mark, 2006. "Investment in private water development: Property rights and contractual opportunism during the California Gold Rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 357-381, April.
    14. Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira & Maria A. García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez, 2007. "Does Private Management Of Water Supply Services Really Increase Prices? An Empirical Analysis," FEG Working Paper Series 07/05, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    15. Marta Suárez-Varela & María los Ángeles García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J Picazo-Tadeo, 2017. "Ownership and Performance in Water Services Revisited: Does Private Management Really Outperform Public?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(8), pages 2355-2373, June.
    16. Bel, Germà & Warner, Mildred, 2008. "Does privatization of solid waste and water services reduce costs? A review of empirical studies," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 52(12), pages 1337-1348.
    17. da Cruz, Nuno F. & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2012. "Mixed companies and local governance: no man can serve two masters," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59778, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Friese, Maria & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Klein, Gordon J., 2020. "Property rights and transaction costs – The role of ownership and organization in German public service provision," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Flavio Martins & Maria Fatima Almeida & Rodrigo Calili & Agatha Oliveira, 2020. "Design Thinking Applied to Smart Home Projects: A User-Centric and Sustainable Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-27, December.
    20. Giat, Yahel & Subramanian, Ajay, 2013. "Dynamic contracting under imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2833-2861.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Urban water management; public choice; Multi-criteria analysis; Analytic Hierarchy Process equation; Spanish regions;
    All these keywords.

    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:eec:wpaper:1101. 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: Vicente Esteve (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dsvales.html .

    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.