Sc. Kumbhakar et L. Hjalmarsson, RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP UNDER YARDSTICK COMPETITION - ELECTRICITY RETAIL DISTRIBUTION, European economic review, 42(1), 1998, pp. 97-122
This paper focuses on productive efficiency in Swedish retail electric
ity distribution during 1970-1990 using hedonic output(s) constructed
from physical outputs and their qualities and network characteristics.
The main focus is on efficiency of privately owned, municipal utiliti
es, municipal companies, and companies with mixed ownerships. Three di
fferent approaches are used to examine whether ownership of the distri
bution companies has any systematic impact on the above issues. We als
o examine returns to scale and technical change. Empirical results fro
m the three alternative approaches show that privately owned companies
are relatively more efficient. We find evidence of scale economies an
d technical progress.