estimating the cost of improving quality in electricity distribution a parametric distance function approach abstract the quality of electricity distribution is being more and more scrutinized by regulatory authorities with explicit reward and penalty schemes based on quality targets having been introduced in many countries it is then of prime importance to know the cost of improving the quality for a distribution system operator in this paper we focus on one dimension of quality the continuity of supply and we estimated the cost of preventing power outages for that we make use of the parametric distance function approach assuming that outages enter in the firm production set as an input an imperfect substitute for maintenance activities and capital investment this allows us to identify the sources of technical inefficiency and the underlying trade off faced by operators between quality and other inputs and costs for this purpose we use panel data on 92 electricity distribution units operated by erdf electricite de france reseau distribution in the 2003 2005 financial years assuming a multi output multi input translog technology we estimate that the cost of preventing one interruption is equal to 10 7 for an average dso furthermore as one would expect marginal quality improvements tend to be more expensive as quality itself improves

partial fiscal decentralization and demand responsiveness of the local public sector theory and evidence from norway this paper provides an empirical test of a principal tenet of fiscal federalism that spending discretion when granted to localities allows public good levels to adjust to suit local demands the test is based on a simple model of partial fiscal decentralization under which earmarking of central transfers for particular uses is eliminated allowing funds to be spent according to local tastes the greater role of local demand determinants following partial decentralization is confirmed by the paper s empirical results which show the effects of the 1986 norwegian reform

quality of service efficiency and scale in network industries an analysis of european electricity distribution quality of service qos is of major economic significance in natural monopoly infrastructure industries in this article we present an efficiency analysis of electricity distribution networks from seven european countries we apply the stochastic frontier analysis method to multi output translog input distance function models to estimate cost efficiency and scale economies we show that introducing the quality dimension into the analysis affects estimated efficiency significantly especially that smaller utilities efficiency seems to decrease our results emphasize that qos should be an integrated part of efficiency and economic analysis of regulated natural monopolies

on the endogenous allocation of decision powers in federal structures abstract this paper provides a political economy explanation of the degree of centralization in economic policy making to determine which policies are to be centralized regions select representatives who then negotiate the degree of centralization and the regional cost shares of centrally decided policies we show that the resulting degree of centralization is suboptimally low voters strategically delegate to representatives who are averse to public spending and hence prefer decentralized decisions in order to reduce their region s cost share when spillovers are asymmetric strategic delegation is stronger at the periphery than at the center

the origins of utility regulation and the theories of regulation debate in this article the author attempts to show that the effort to ascribe regulatory effects to a theory largely deflects attention from the dynamic relationships between the regulator and the regulated firm or industry played out most frequently within a long term relationship closely resembling more familiar forms of long term contracts the focus on regulation by commission is misguided and the differences between regulation by commission and by other regulatory techniques are less important than has been appreciated the author s examination of the history of public utility regulation makes impossible any clear cut distinction between competing public interest and private interest theories

energy production system optimization evidence from pakistan abstract the ongoing energy crisis in pakistan and the dependency on thermal electricity generation has contributed to the necessity to optimize energy production system the expensive thermal electricity and inability to recover its cost gives unprecedented rise to the electricity tariffs in this study optimization of the energy production system has been performed using linear programing model as the high cost of electricity generation has been found as the root cause of energy crises the objective function of the proposed model is cost minimization that will also reduce the circular debt specifically it has examined the optimum proportion of energy production from each available source under two different scenarios the first scenario considers that the existing system should be used at its maximum capacity in the second scenario seventy percent utilization of power plants has been examined the second scenario summarizes the optimum mix of energy production which minimizes the cost of electricity production the differential cost that is payable by the government as a subsidy is also compensated similarly it reduces circular debt that is a bottleneck between power generation companies and oil supply companies thus the proposed model has a tendency to minimize the cost of energy production and further reduce circular debt as well as the burden of a subsidy on the government the study specifies the problems confronting pakistan s energy sector and identifies the key elements of a potential policy response to address the country s severe power crisis

a political economy theory of partial decentralization we revisit the classic problem of tax competition in the context of federal nations and derive a positive theory of partial decentralization a capital poor median voter chooses to use redistributive capital taxes to provide public goods the expectation of high capital taxes however results in a small capital stock which lowers returns to redistribution the median voter therefore wants to commit to a lower level of capital taxes she does so by setting a partial degree of decentralization in the constitution the equilibrium degree of decentralization balances the positive effect of tax competition on capital taxes with the loss in redistribution that results we show that the degree of decentralization is nonmonotonic in inequality increasing in the redistributive efficiency of public good provision and decreasing in capital productivity when public goods are heterogeneous in their capacity to transfer funds all voters agree that goods with high redistributive capacity should be decentralized

efficiency analysis of german electricity distribution utilities non parametric and parametric tests this study applies non parametric and parametric tests to assess the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in germany traditional issues in electricity sector benchmarking are addressed such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size as well as new evidence specific to the situation in germany labour capital and peak load capacity are used as inputs and units sold and the number of customers as output the data cover 307 out of 553 german electricity distribution utilities a data envelopment analysis dea is applied with constant returns to scale crs as the main productivity analysis technique whereas stochastic frontier analysis sfa with distance function is the verification method the results suggest that returns to scale play but a minor role only very small utilities have a significant cost advantage low customer density is found to affect the efficiency score significantly in particular in the lower third of all observations surprisingly east german utiliti

benchmarking and regulation of power distribution companies in pakistan abstract using stochastic frontier analysis the study examines the cost effectiveness of electricity distribution utilities in pakistan for this purpose cost in efficiency is calculated for 8 distribution utilities using data for the period 2003 2013 the findings reveal that on average there is 72 5 efficiency in the electricity distribution sector it indicates that electricity distribution utilities in pakistan are cost inefficient by 27 5 it is also found that quality of service affects efficiency the results imply that there is significant potential to improve efficiency of electricity distribution utilities and that quality of service should be incorporated as part of efficiency of the electricity distribution utilities in pakistan

estimating the marginal cost of quality improvements the case of the uk electricity distribution companies the main aim of this paper is to develop an econometric approach to estimation of marginal costs of improving quality of service we implement this methodology by way of applying it to the case of the uk electricity distribution networks the estimated marginal costs allow us to shed light on the effectiveness of the current uk incentive regulation to improve quality and to derive optimal quality levels and welfare losses due to sub optimal quality levels the proposed method also allows us to measure the welfare effect of the observed quality improvements in the uk between 1995 and 2003 our results suggest that while the incentive schemes established by the regulator to encourage utilities to reduce network energy losses leads to improvement in sector performance they do not provide utilities with sufficient incentives to avoid power interruptions we find that the observed improvements in quality during the period of this study only represented 30 of the potential customer welfare gains and hence there was still significant scope for quality improvements

efficiency and regulation of the slovenian electricity distribution companies abstract the slovenian energy law adopted in 1999 has opened the internal market to competition up to 64 of the final consumption the opening of the internal market to foreign competition is envisaged for 2003 with regard to the methodology of price regulation the energy law introduces the price cap regulation which aims to give firms incentive for cost reduction to provide information for effective price regulation we estimated a cost frontier function on a sample of slovenian electricity distribution utilities over the 1991 2000 period the estimated efficient frontier could be used by slovenian regulatory agency as a benchmark to regulate network access prices our results show that slovenian distribution companies are cost inefficient we have also proved the presence of increasing returns to scale with most utilities not achieving the minimum efficient scale thus the slovenian regulatory authority should consider how to induce mergers of small electricity distribution utilities into larger units

on the determinants of fiscal centralization theory and evidence abstract this paper presents a simple model that unifies most of the results of the literature on fiscal federalism the model describes an economy characterized by two levels of government one public good and a private good the predictions of the model are tested by using a new set of measures of fiscal centralization the main findings are that country size income per capita ethnic fractionalization and level of democracy are negatively correlated with the degree of fiscal centralization the model is tested using ols tobit and semi parametric estimators the paper also shows that the variables included in the regression are helpful in the prediction of changes in the level of centralization

the endogeneity of the natural rate of growth the aim of this paper is to estimate the sensitivity of the natural rate of growth to the actual rate of growth for 15 oecd countries over the period 1961 95 on the hypothesis that the natural rate of growth is not exogenously given to do this we estimate the natural rate of growth and then how it changes when the actual growth rate is different from the natural rate as a side test of the endogeneity hypothesis we also test for the direction of causality between national output and factor inputs for the same set of countries our results support the idea that the natural rate of growth is not independent of the actual rate of growth and bring to the fore the importance of focusing on demand as well as supply for an understanding of long run growthrate differences between countries

an institutional framework for the development of sustainable and competitive power market in pakistan abstract pakistan is continuously striving for sustainable and competitive power market under the comprehensive power sector reform program pakistan shifted its power market from monopoly model to single buyer model by unbundling water and power development authority wapda and establishing national transmission and dispatch company ntdc current severe power situation in the country is triggering the government of pakistan gop to accelerate the implementation of intended reform program and to readily undertake next planned transformation i e from single buyer model to wholesale market model this research endeavors the future dynamics of power market after the structural spin off by pre assessment of upcoming wholesale power market market power of both public and private electricity generators has been computed using 8 largest firm concentration ratio herfindahl hirschman index hhi and residual supply index rsi the findings suggest that future power market will function with non existence of market power except in the periods of peak electricity demand and maximum hydro generation furthermore insufficient installed capacities and underutilization of public thermal units may enable some players to exercise market power for sustainable and competitive power market an empirically supported framework has been proposed based on the analysis the framework proposes utilization of huge available renewable energy potential for future which will protect the whole infrastructure from market power it recommends respective roles and responsibilities for the smooth transition among market models the framework will be supportive in terms of successful and smooth transition from single buyer model to wholesale market model and potential of wind solar biogas to be properly explored and utilized to reduce energy gap

benchmarking and incentive regulation of quality of service an application to the uk electricity distribution networks abstract quality of service has emerged as an important issue in post reform regulation of electricity distribution networks regulators have employed partial incentive schemes to promote cost saving investment efficiency and service quality this paper presents a quality incorporated benchmarking study of the electricity distribution utilities in the uk between 1991 92 and 1998 99 we calculate technical efficiency of the utilities using data envelopment analysis technique and productivity change over time using quality incorporated malmquist indices we find that cost efficient firms do not necessarily exhibit high service quality and that efficiency scores of cost only models do not show high correlation with those of quality based models the results also show that improvements in service quality have made a significant contribution to the sector s total productivity change in addition we show that integrating quality of service in regulatory benchmarking is preferable to cost only approaches

the nature and role of monetary policy when money is endogenous this paper considers the nature and role of monetary policy when money is modelled as credit money endogenously created within the private sector there are currently two schools of thought that view money as endogenous one has been labelled the new consensus in macroeconomics and the other is the keynesian endogenous bank money approach the paper first explores the analysis of monetary policy in the new consensus macroeconomic model followed by an examination of the effectiveness of monetary policy in that analysis the keynesian view of endogenous money is discussed and the role for monetary policy in a keynesian endogenous monetary policy analysis is considered including discussion of the objectives and instruments of monetary policy copyright 2006 oxford university press

macroeconomic constraints to growth of the brazilian economy diagnosis and some policy proposals the recent accelerated expansion of the brazilian economy from 2004 to 2007 was driven by exports and gross fixed capital formation although this pace of growth is more robust than it was in the 1990s we can still witness the presence of macroeconomic constraints to its continuation in the long term such as the exchange rate overvaluation particularly since 2005 and in general the modus operandi of monetary policy such constraints may jeopardise the sustainability of the current pace of growth we argue that brazil still lies in a trap made up of high interest and low exchange rates the elimination of the exchange rate misalignment would bring about a large increase in the rate of interest which in turn would impact negatively upon investment and hence upon long term growth we indicate a set of policy measures to eliminate such a trap in particular the adoption of an implicit exchange rate target capital controls and the substitution of the present regime of inflation targeting with a double mandate regime where monetary authorities must pursue two objectives i e output stabilisation and inflation control recent events seem to go in this direction

what is the best practice for benchmark regulation of electricity distribution comparison of dea sfa and stoned methods electricity distribution is a natural local monopoly in many countries the regulators of this sector apply frontier methods such as data envelopment analysis dea or stochastic frontier analysis sfa to estimate the efficient cost of operation in finland a new stoned method was adopted in 2012 this paper compares dea sfa and stoned in the context of regulating electricity distribution using data from finland we compare the impacts of methodological choices on cost efficiency estimates and acceptable cost while the efficiency estimates are highly correlated the cost targets reveal major differences in addition we examine performance of the methods by monte carlo simulations we calibrate the data generation process dgp to closely match the empirical data and the model specification of the regulator we find that the stoned estimator yields a root mean squared error rmse of 4 with the sample size 100 precision improves as the sample size increases the dea estimator yields an rmse of approximately 10 but performance deteriorates as the sample size increases the sfa estimator has an rmse of 144 the poor performance of sfa is due to the wrong functional form and multicollinearity

accumulation innovation and catching up an extended cumulative growth model this paper presents an extended model of cumulative growth in which the effects of innovation and catching up are considered innovation adds another source of cumulative growth to that of traditional models and allows a consideration of the importance of non price determinants of international competitiveness catching up is the major force leading to convergence in productivity owing to the effect of the diffusion of technology the model allows one to analyse whether cumulative forces may lead to stable growth and whether this solution generates convergence in productivity levels the structural model is tested for a set of oecd countries over the period 1965 94

real exchange rate levels and economic development theoretical analysis and econometric evidence according to the development approach to exchange rates competitive currencies have been a key factor in most east and southeast asian successful growth strategies there is also today an important empirical literature that relates overvaluations to low per capita growth rates while the econometric literature on this issue is relatively rich theoretical analysis of channels through which real exchange rate levels could affect economic development are very scarce this paper intends to contribute to the debate by bringing more theoretical elements and providing new econometric evidence to the connections between real exchange rate levels and development

a structural economic dynamics approach to balance of payments constrained growth this paper derives a balance of payments equilibrium growth rate analogous to thirlwall s law from a pasinettian multi sector macrodynamic framework the resulting formula which we call the multi sectoral thirlwall s law asserts that a country s growth rate of per capita income is directly proportional to the growth rate of its exports with such a proportionality being inversely directly related to sectoral income elasticities of demand for imports exports these income elasticities are weighted by coefficients that measure the share of each sector in total imports and exports respectively it is shown that several theoretical empirical and policy implications can be drawn from such a structural economic dynamics approach to balance of payments constrained growth

does decentralization increase government responsiveness to local needs evidence from bolivia this paper examines whether decentralization increases the responsiveness of public investment to local needs using a unique database from bolivia empirical tests show that investment patterns in human capital and social services changed significantly after decentralization these changes are strongly and positively related to objective indicators of need nationally these changes were driven by the smallest poorest municipalities investing devolved funds in their highest priority projects the findings contradict common claims that local government is too corrupt institutionally weak or prone to interest group capture to improve upon central government s allocation of public resources d 2002 published by elsevier b v