Empirical Studies on Cost Structure, Regulation and Privatization in Public Utility Industries

本研究的主要目的是通过分析公用事业行业的成本结构来评估引入竞争政策的可能性，并评估公用事业行业私有化如何改善生产效率等绩效指标。我们将介绍从这些分析中获得的政策含义。我们分析的四个主要行业是供水行业、铁路行业、邮政行业和地方公共服务。我们之所以选择这些行业，是因为人们强烈期望这些行业会进行改革（例如供水行业），有些行业已经进行了改革（例如铁路行业），其中许多行业有可能会私有化，或者他们的管理方式将转变为更接近私营的管理方式。我们收集了有关公用事业行业的数据，并使用计量经济学技术对其进行了分析，从中获得了与政策形成相关的信息。例如，在提供最小平均成本方面，最优规模是约76万人口。其次，我们发现竞争对私营机构提高包裹递送服务的效率有影响，但对邮局提高生产力和降低成本没有明显影响。第三，铁路行业的运营-基础设施分离方案在维护活动中没有成本优势。最后，私有化肯定会导致成本降低效应。

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the possibility of the introduction of competition policy by analyzing the cost structure of public utility industries and to assess how performance measures such as productive efficiency might be improved by the privatization of the public utility industries. We will present policy implications garnered from these analyses. The four main industries we analyzed were the water supply industry, the railway industry, the postal service industry and local public services. We chose these industries because there are strong expectations that they will be reformed (e.g. the water supply industry), some have already been reformed (e.g. the railway industry), and there is for many of them the possibility that they will be privatized or that their management style will be changed to resemble more closely private-style management.We collected data regarding public utility industries, which we analyzed by using econometric techniques and from which we obtained information relevant to policy formation. For example, optimal size in terms of providing the minimum average costs is a population of about 760 thousand. Second, we found a competition effect on the private sector's efficiency improvement in parcel delivery service but could not discern a clear effect on productivity improvement and cost reduction for the Post Office. Third, there are no cost advantages in maintenance activities for the operation-infrastructure separation scheme in the railway industry. Last, privatization certainly leads to the cost reduction effect.