This chapter assesses what is known regarding the relationship between the ownership and
performance of municipal water utilities. It examines the theoretical models predicting that …

Property rights theory posits that private firms are more efficiently managed than government
enterprises. An important rationale for privatization, these ownership effects are ascribed to …

The article examines the expansion of private water companies since 1989 the withdrawal
from developing countries from 2003 onwards, and the economic impact of privatisation. The …

In the final decade of the 20th century, water privatisation came to be regarded as virtually
the only option for improving the performance of water and sewerage authorities in capital …

During much of the 1990s, water utilities worldwide experienced a wave of privatization. The
rationale for this is largely based on two hypotheses: the fiscal hypothesis and the efficiency …

The question of the relative merits of private and public ownership is a vexed one. For some
the terms' private'and'public'are respectively synonymous with efficiency and waste …

The paper considers whether water privatization 30 years ago has delivered the promised
superior performance to nationalization, which remains the dominant model in Europe. The …

Most theories on private sector participation in water infrastructure are based on the sole
supposed difference of efficiency between the public and the private sector. The review of 22 …

A prolific theoretical and empirical literature has examined the relevance of structures and
institutions to public utility performance, with a particular emphasis on the discrete role of …

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate various organizational models for the ownership
and control of natural monopolies–specifically the infrastructure of water and sewage …