There is growing concern about the operations of the municipal agencies responsible for supplying potable water and treating sewage, spurred by (1) difficulties of maintaining aging capital stocks in times of tightening fiscal constraints, (2) the water pollution generated by these agencies, (3) problems associated with service quality and reliability, and (4) the recognition of the role played by utilities in allocating scarce water resources. These concerns have lead to a heightened scrutiny of these agencies with increased interest in reforming their operations. In particular, this has focused on an examination of whether the ownership of water utilities is a factor explaining their behavior and whether changing their ownership will lead to improvements in their operations. The purpose of this paper was to critically assess what is known regarding the relationship between the ownership and performance of municipal water utilities. There are a number of theoretical arguments that support the prediction that privately owned water utilities will out-perform comparable publicly funded utilities. These arguments draw on property-rights and public choice theories and principle agent models in order to emphasize the difficulty that governments have in monitoring and providing proper incentives for utility managers. Empirical evidence was obtained from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France based on a variety of performance indicators. These data revealed that there was no compelling evidence of private utilities outperforming public utilities or that privatizing water utilities leads to improvements in performance.

译文

由于 (1) 在财政紧缩时期难以维持老化的资本存量,(2) 这些机构产生的水污染,(3) 与服务质量和可靠性相关的问题,以及 (4) 认识到公用事业在分配稀缺水资源方面所起的作用。这些担忧导致对这些机构的审查更加严格,对改革其业务越来越感兴趣。特别是,这集中在检查自来水公司的所有权是否是解释其行为的一个因素,以及改变其所有权是否会导致其运营的改善。本文的目的是严格评估有关市政自来水公司所有权与绩效之间关系的已知知识。有许多理论论点支持以下预测: 私人自来水公司的性能将超过可比的公共公用事业。这些论点借鉴了产权和公共选择理论以及主要代理模型,以强调政府在监督和为公用事业管理者提供适当激励方面的困难。根据各种绩效指标,从美国,英国和法国获得了经验证据。这些数据显示,没有令人信服的证据表明私人公用事业的表现优于公用事业,或者将公用事业私有化可以改善绩效。

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