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

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  • 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.

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  • 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
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    Cited by:

    1. Jamasb, Tooraj, 2006. "Between the state and market: Electricity sector reform in developing countries," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 14-30, March.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda R. Tmilsina, 2017. "A Quarter Century Effort Yet to Come of Age: A Survey of Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(3), pages 195-234, May.
    5. 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.
    6. 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).
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Tim Coelli & Denis Lawrence (ed.), 2006. "Performance Measurement and Regulation of Network Utilities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3801.
    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.

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    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

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