Efficiency in the Consolidation of the Italian Water Sector

Graziano Abrate (), Clementina Bruno, Fabrizio Erbetta, Giovanni Fraquelli and Anna Giolitti
Additional contact information
Graziano Abrate: Università del Piemonte Orientale
Clementina Bruno: Università del Piemonte Orientale
Fabrizio Erbetta: Università del Piemonte Orientale
Giovanni Fraquelli: Università del Piemonte Orientale
Anna Giolitti: Hermes Research Center

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2017, vol. 31, issue 8, No 7, 2447-2463

Abstract: Abstract Despite since the mid-90s the regulation has encouraged horizontal and vertical bundling, the Italian water and sewerage industry is still largely fragmented. This work investigates the potential benefits of the process of consolidation, relying on realistic ex-ante merger hypotheses. A parametric methodology is used to implement the Bogetoft and Wang 2005’s decomposition of potential gains from mergers (J Prod Anal 23:145–171). When looking at strictly technological aspects, results do not provide univocal evidence in favor or against merger strategies, recommending a case-by-case approach in evaluating real merger projects. Moreover, the largest potential gains are due to managerial rather than technological inefficiency, thus their effective ex-post attainment ultimately depend on the ability to tackle the change and on political will.

Keywords: Water and sewerage sector; Efficiency; Mergers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-016-1376-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:waterr:v:31:y:2017:i:8:d:10.1007_s11269-016-1376-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-016-1376-9

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().