The impact of governance structure on firm performance: An application to the German water distribution sector

Sophia Ruester () and Michael Zschille

Utilities Policy, 2010, vol. 18, issue 3, 154-162

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of governance structure on firm performance (i.e., retail prices) using a database of 765 German water suppliers. Controlling for scale economies as well as technical and structural characteristics, we find that private sector participation is accompanied with higher retail prices. Furthermore, Eastern states on average feature higher prices mirroring significant investments during the past two decades as well as network over-dimension. Assuming that managers make strategic decisions (e.g., governance form) not randomly but rather decide based on expectations of how their choices affect future performance, we test for this self-selection applying a two-stage model.

Keywords: Private; sector; participation; Firm; performance; Water; supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957-1787(10)00030-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juipol:v:18:y:2010:i:3:p:154-162

Access Statistics for this article

Utilities Policy is currently edited by Beecher, Janice

More articles in Utilities Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().