Has efficiency improved after the decentralization in the water industry in Venezuela?

Angel Higuerey, Lourdes Trujillo (ltrujillo@daea.ulpgc.es) and María Manuela González

Utilities Policy, 2017, vol. 49, issue C, 127-136

Abstract: The importance of water in life and health of population, especially in developing countries, justifies the comparative study of the performance of undertakings providing potable water and waste water collection. The main objective of this research is to investigate if the decentralization process has led to an improvement of the efficiency in the water industry. Using a stochastic frontier analysis, we show that technical efficiency of Venezuelan water companies remained around 84% and that decentralized companies were more efficient than the centralized ones. The main policy recommendation is that the process of decentralization in the water services should continue.

Keywords: Efficiency; Decentralization; Potable water; Sewerage; Distance function; Venezuela; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C51 G18 L11 L51 L95 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juipol:v:49:y:2017:i:c:p:127-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2017.05.003

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