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This paper analyzes the evolution of productivity of the electricity distribution companies in Peru, to assess whether reforms have improved the efficiency in this sector. The paper also identifies potential sources of productivity changes, based on market restructuring the electricity sector and changes in property. To do this, we rely on a set of data for 14 distribution companies, for the period 1996–2006. Our analysis suggests that improvements in the efficiency and productivity of electricity distribution in Peru have occurred, and that there is a relationship between the restructuring of distribution sector and the enhancement of productivity.

In this paper we apply Stochastic Frontier Analysis through a distance function to investigate the impact of firm size on productivity development in electricity distribution. We use a sample of seventeen Brazilian firms from 1998 to 2005 and decompose productivity into technical efficiency, scale efficiency and technical change. Moreover, a further step is to decompose the technical change measurement into several components. The results indicate that firm size is important for industry's productivity, and therefore a key aspect to consider when making decisions that affect the market structure in the electricity distribution industry. 833 826 1,603 2,723 Q1 Q1 SCIE SSCI

This paper addresses the question whether energy consumption variables and the disaggregation of output matter in the context of efficiency analysis of container terminals. While it is obvious that the energy consumption of refrigerated cargo is higher than the energy consumption of non-refrigerated cargo, this work investigates whether those differences show in an overall efficiency analysis of terminals. This would point to a potentially important input for efficiency measures, to be considered in future productivity and efficiency analysis of terminals. Starting with a discussion on theoretical concepts and variable selection for measuring the energy dimension of terminal efficiency, this is the first paper that applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) comparing results with and without energy consumption, as well as differentiating productive outputs (dry and reefer container handling). The results reveal how the output disaggregation leads to substantially different efficiency scores and are a first step to show the relevance of output disaggregation and the inclusion of the energy variables as inputs in container terminal efficiency studies. 0,804 3,5 Q1 Q3 SSCI 11,0

The extent to which the structural reform of the Peruvian electricity market in the 1990s has improved the technical efficiency levels of the distribution companies and whether some firm specific explanatory variables had influenced upon the efficiency was analysed for first time using a second stage Tobit model to study the influence of some firm specific explanatory variables on efficiency. Some authors have argued that the use of Tobit regression is inappropriate in the second stage of DEA and have suggested using other recently developed options. Due to this, it might be worth revisiting this issue and adding those other alternative models to check whether the conclusions obtained with the Tobit model could be upheld. The nine alternative models estimated allow us to confirm that the incentives generated by the reform process led to the firms becoming more efficient. Moreover, private management and the ratio of low voltage sales to medium voltage sales for each company positively affect efficiency, whereas investment per customer is negatively correlated to it.

This article analyses the current state of the gas distribution industry in Brazil, by identifying the main factors that determine its efficiency. In order to test the performance of the industry, we have calculated the firms’ technical efficiency during the period 2001–2009. We analyse whether some economic and technological factors as consumer density, load factor or regulation, among others, have affected the performance of this industry. We show that companies serving markets with different customer characteristics (diversification) have reached higher levels of efficiency and evolved faster. Moreover, the private ownership and price cap regulation are more efficient in relation to public ownership and cost of service regulation. These findings are important to support the improvement of the regulation of gas distribution in the Brazilian states. 5406 5390 0,448 0,586 Q2 Q3 SSCI