Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Ministry of Energy National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company
2 Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Bu Ali Sina University, Hamadan, Iran
Abstract
Water utilities provide one of the most crucial services to boost health and welfare of communities. In Iran until 2019, the utilities in urban and rural areas were independent, and in each province there were an urban water utility and a rural water utility serving urban and rural areas respectively. In 2019 by law, the rural water utilities were attached to the urban ones and provincial unified water utilities were formed. For water utilities industry, this brought about enormous changes in terms of organizational structure and scale of operation. Using non-parametric method for measuring efficiency in the form of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the model were supposed to have Variable Returns to Scale (VAR) with “labor forces” and “assets” of the companies as inputs, along with the ” number of water connections” and the “number of wastewater connections” as outputs. Hence the effects of the changes in efficiency of all 31 urban and 3 independent water utilities before and after unification were compared. Results show the unification improved average efficiency score, so the unification had a positive effect in the water utility sector in Iran.
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