IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/frz/wpaper/wp2008_10.rdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of productive efficiency and quality of a regulated local public utility on final goods prices and consumers welfare

Author

Abstract

In this paper, we reconstruct the process by which the decisions of a regulated local public utility, in terms of productive efficiency and quality of the service provided, impact on prices of final consumption goods, supplied in a oligopolistic market operating in the same geographic area. We obtain some formula for these effects which can be quantified by estimating firms’ conditional input demand function of the public service and firms’ inverse demand function for this public good, non-rival, component. Finally, we draw the effects of productive efficiency and quality on consumer welfare and cost-of-living, via changes on tariffs, external effects and final goods prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Petretto, 2008. "The impact of productive efficiency and quality of a regulated local public utility on final goods prices and consumers welfare," Working Papers - Economics wp2008_10.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    • Handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2008_10.rdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.disei.unifi.it/upload/sub/pubblicazioni/repec/pdf/wp10_2008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raffaele Miniaci & Carlo Scarpa & Paola Valbonesi, 2008. "Distributional Effects of Price Reforms in the Italian Utility Markets," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 135-163, March.
    2. Creedy, John, 2000. "Measuring Welfare Changes and the Excess Burden of Taxation," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 1-47, January.
    3. Bartle, Ian & Vass, Peter, 2007. "Independent economic regulation: A reassessment of its role in sustainable development," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 261-269, December.
    4. Kevin M. Currier, 2007. "Quality‐Corrected Price Caps," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 255-268, July.
    5. Mark Armstrong & David E.M. Sappington, 2006. "Regulation, Competition and Liberalization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(2), pages 325-366, June.
    6. Owen, Gill, 2006. "Sustainable development duties: New roles for UK economic regulators," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 208-217, September.
    7. Picazo-Tadeo, Andres J. & Saez-Fernandez, Francisco J. & Gonzalez-Gomez, Francisco, 2008. "Does service quality matter in measuring the performance of water utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 30-38, March.
    8. Fare, Rolf, et al, 1989. "Multilateral Productivity Comparisons When Some Outputs Are Undesirable: A Nonparametric Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(1), pages 90-98, February.
    9. Paul Makdissi & Quentin Wodon, 2007. "Poverty‐Reducing and Welfare‐Improving Marginal Public Price and Price Cap Reforms," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(4), pages 683-698, August.
    10. Diego Prior, 2006. "Efficiency and total quality management in health care organizations: A dynamic frontier approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 281-299, July.
    11. Behrens, Kristian & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2007. "Regional economics: A new economic geography perspective," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 457-465, July.
    12. Bennett, John & Iossa, Elisabetta, 2006. "Building and managing facilities for public services," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2143-2160, November.
    13. Graeme Guthrie, 2006. "Regulating Infrastructure: The Impact on Risk and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 925-972, December.
    14. Mark Armstrong & Simon Cowan & John Vickers, 1994. "Regulatory Reform: Economic Analysis and British Experience," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510790, December.
    15. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    16. David Sappington, 2005. "Regulating Service Quality: A Survey," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 123-154, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alessandro Petretto, 2009. "On the Impact of Productive Efficiency and Quality of a Regulated Local Public Utility Upon Final Goods Prices and Consumer's Welfare," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 68(3), pages 311-339, July.
    2. Ingo Vogelsang, 2012. "Incentive Regulation, Investments and Technological Change," Chapters, in: Gerald R. Faulhaber & Gary Madden & Jeffrey Petchey (ed.), Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Armstrong, Mark & Sappington, David E.M., 2007. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1557-1700, Elsevier.
    4. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2009. "Toward a Theory of Regulation for Developing Countries: Following Jean-Jacques Laffont's Lead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 729-770, September.
    5. Cesi Berardino & Iozzi Alberto & Valentini Edilio, 2012. "Regulating Unverifiable Quality by Fixed-Price Contracts," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-39, September.
    6. Angela S. Bergantino & Etienne Billette De Villemeur & Annalisa Vinella, 2011. "Partial Regulation in Vertically Differentiated Industries," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(2), pages 255-287, April.
    7. Paulo Moisés Costa & Nuno Bento & Vítor Marques, 2014. "Dealing with Technological Risk in a Regulatory Context: The Case of Smart Grids," GEMF Working Papers 2014-11, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    8. David Martimort & Flavio Menezes & Myrna Wooders & ELISABETTA IOSSA & DAVID MARTIMORT, 2015. "The Simple Microeconomics of Public-Private Partnerships," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 4-48, February.
    9. Fay, Marianne & Martimort, David & Straub, Stéphane, 2021. "Funding and financing infrastructure: The joint-use of public and private finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    10. T. Jamasb & R. Nepal, 2015. "Issues and Options in the Economic Regulation of European Network Security," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Intersentia, vol. 16(1), pages 2-23, March.
    11. Worch, Hagen & Truffer, Bernhard & Kabinga, Mundia & Eberhard, Anton & Markard, Jochen, 2013. "A capability perspective on performance deficiencies in utility firms," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-9.
    12. Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2015. "Incentive regulation and utility benchmarking for electricity network security," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-127.
    13. Avdasheva, Svetlana & Orlova, Yulia, 2020. "Effects of long-term tariff regulation on investments under low credibility of rules: Rate-of-return and price cap in Russian electricity grids," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    14. Harald Gruber & Pantelis Koutroumpis, 2013. "Competition enhancing regulation and diffusion of innovation: the case of broadband networks," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 168-195, April.
    15. Balazs Egert, 2009. "Infrastructure Investment in Network Industries: The Role of Incentive Regulation and Regulatory Independence," CESifo Working Paper Series 2642, CESifo.
    16. Gruber, Harald & Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2011. "Procompetitive infrastructure sector regulation and diffusion of innovation: The case of broadband networks," 22nd European Regional ITS Conference, Budapest 2011: Innovative ICT Applications - Emerging Regulatory, Economic and Policy Issues 52161, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    17. Alessandro Petretto, 2007. "The impact of productive efficiency and quality of a regulated local public utility on final goods prices," Working Papers - Economics wp2007_06, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    18. Hagen Worch & Bernhard Truffer & Mundia Kabinga & Jochen Markard & Anton Eberhard, 2012. "Tackling the Capability Gap in Utility Firms: Applying Management Research to Infrastructure Sectors," CID Working Papers 55, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    19. Marques, Vítor & Bento, Nuno & Costa, Paulo Moisés, 2014. "The “Smart Paradox”: Stimulate the deployment of smart grids with effective regulatory instruments," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 96-103.
    20. Francesc Trillas Jané, 2016. "Behavioral Regulatory Agencies," Working Papers wpdea1606, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    regulation; x-efficiency; oligopoly; consumer welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory

    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:frz:wpaper:wp2008_10.rdf. 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: Giorgio Ricchiuti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/defirit.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.