Does service quality matter in measuring the performance of water utilities?

被引：70
|
作者：
Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. [1 ]
Sáez-Fernández, Francisco J. [2 ]
González-Gómez, Francisco [3 ]
机构：
[1] Universidad de Valencia, Departamento de Economía Aplicada II, 46022 Valencia, Campus dels Tarongers
[2] Fundación Escuela de Negocios de Andalucía, Universidad de Granada, Departamento de Economía Internacional y de España, 18011 Granada, Campus de Cartuja
[3] Universidad de Granada, Departamento de Economía Aplicada, 18011 Granada, Campus de Cartuja
来源：
Utilities Policy | 2008年 / 16卷 / 01期
关键词：
Data envelopment analysis; Efficiency; Quality; Water utilities;
D O I：
10.1016/j.jup.2007.10.001
中图分类号：
学科分类号：
摘要：
Quality is a dimension of water services that has been repeatedly omitted in the study of performance of water utilities. In this paper, Data Envelopment Analysis techniques are used to compute both conventional quantity-based and quality-adjusted scores of technical efficiency for a sample of Spanish water utilities. The key assumptions are that a lack of quality (bad quality) can be regarded as a bad output and the existence of a trade-off between quantity and quality. Our main results indicate that quality matters in measuring technical efficiency, the difference between conventional and quality-adjusted evaluations representing the opportunity cost of maintaining quality. Averages and distribution functions significantly differ between both assessments of performance, although water utilities do not seem to rank differently. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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页码：30 / 38
页数：8
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