The Effects of Consolidation amongst Japanese Water Utilities

Takuya Urakami and David Parker

Urban Studies, 2011, vol. 48, issue 13, 2805-2825

Abstract: In many parts of the world, water is supplied by very small, local undertakings. In recent years, there has been a move to consolidation of these utilities in a number of countries. This paper looks at the economic effects of consolidation of Japanese water utilities in the period 1999–2006 using translog cost functions with a hedonic output specification. The results clarify what factors have been most affected in terms of the cost structure of the water utilities after consolidation. Overall, the finding is that consolidation has had some beneficial impact on cost effectiveness, but that the result is surprisingly limited. This appears to be because cost savings from an improvement in the use of scarce water resources have been offset by extra expenditure on supplying water to areas with lower population density.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098010391286 (text/html)

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:sae:urbstu:v:48:y:2011:i:13:p:2805-2825

DOI: 10.1177/0042098010391286

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().