Past and future sustainability of water policies in Europe

The article contributes to a discussion on two global issues on water: water resources management, and water supply and sanitation. Focusing on Europe, it traces the legal roots of current systems in history: as a resource, water is considered as a common property, rather than a market good; while as a public service it is usually a commodity. Public water supply and sanitation technologies and engineering have developed under three main paradigms: quantitative and civil engineering; qualitative and chemical/sanitary engineering (both on the supply side); and the most recent one, environmental engineering and integrated management (on the demand side). The cost of public drinking water is due to rise sharply in view of the two‐fold financial challenge of replacing an ageing infrastructure and keeping up with ever‐rising environmental and sanitary quality standards. Who will pay? Government subsidies, or water users? The author suggests that apparent successes with privatisation may have relied heavily on hidden government subsidies and/or the healthy state of previously installed water infrastructure: past government subsidies are still felt for as long as the lifetime of the infrastructure. The article stresses the importance of public participation and decentralized local management of water and sanitation services. Informing and involving users in water management decisions is seen as an integral part of the ‘ethics’ side of the crucial three E's (economics, environment, ethics). The article strongly argues for municipal provision of water services, and hopes that lessons learnt and solutions found in the European experience may serve water services management efforts in other regions of the world.     

公用事业民营化及其环境行为政府管制的研究

公用事业民营化的目的是在公用事业行业引入民间资本和市场竞争模式,提高公共产品服务的产出质量和效率。以电力行业的民营化为例,电力市场对于民营企业的开放能够在很大程度上提高我国电力生产水平．解决当前电力供求关系紧张的问题。但是,大量民营企业介入电力生产,由于其技术落后而导致的资源浪费以及污染物的无序排放给我国的环境保护带来了新的困扰。我们应该在科学发展观和构建社会主义和谐社会的目标指引下,加强政府对于电力企业等公用事业民营化企业生产经营活动的法律管制,同时加强和完善相关的环境立法,达到公用事业积极发展和环境保护目标实现的双赢目标。     

The Impact of Development and Privatization on Environmental Protection: An International Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to add to the body of knowledge and understanding of the impact of development and privatization on international environmental protection with the focus on balancing social and economic performance for the affected organizations and communities. More specifically, supported by a database of worldwide, regional, and country studies from 1991 to 2000, it is proposed that the role of development and privatization in environmental administration in the international context has negative as well as positive consequences. Moreover, the negative consequences are often masked or go undetected because the effectiveness of development and privatization is based primarily on economic performance. Thus, to obtain a more accurate and realistic determination of the effectiveness of development and privatization, measures of social as well as economic performance and the overall effect on the natural environment should be considered.     

Estimating the Relative Efficiency of Brazilian Publicly and Privately Owned Water Utilities: A Stochastic Cost Frontier Approach1

Abstract: This paper assesses cost efficiencies of Brazilian public and private companies of water supply. To measure the efficiency, we used a stochastic frontier model derived from the translog family – a specification similar to a Cobb‐Douglas including a quadratic term in log output. The model parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood using Brazilian data for the year 2002. Statistical inference leads to the conclusion that there is no evidence that private firms and public firms are significantly different in terms of efficiency measurements.     

Determinants of privatized solid waste management service provision in Lagos

The growing popularity of privatized solid waste management service in least developed countries warrants an exploration of factors that are likely to impact on its sustainability. This study takes integrated solid waste management approach by analyzing relevant issues on both market sides. We use a three step theme development sequence to analyze the data obtained on service providers through library research, observations and interviews. This was followed by an opinion survey on the demand side to elicit households’ support for service improvement. Findings show that source-separation issues, government enforcement, market segmentation, financial issues and waste disposal issues are key factors influencing improved service provision. Meanwhile, on the demand side, we found that households are willing to support proposed regulatory improvement in service provision. Thus, we suggest industrial stakeholders to consider the aforementioned supply side issues in designing future service improvements that will take advantage of existing demand side feasibility.     

公共产品供给民营化背景下的政府规制研究

20世纪90年代开始,我国启动了公用事业市场化改革,民营资本特别是外资流向自来水供给、污水处理、城市生活垃圾收集与处理、燃气供应等行业。私人部门的介入激活了公共产品供给市场,有利于社会福利的增进,但也招致了诸多问题。公共产品供给民营化,并不意味着政府的完全退出,政府始终负有向社会公众提供公共产品或服务的原始责任,民营化只是在提供的形式上完成了向私人部门的转移,政府应完成从公共产品直接提供者向规制者的角色转换。本文以城市生活垃圾产业为例,进行了系统的分析。认为有效的规制应建立在真实的规制环境上,在城市生活垃圾产业民营化的规制中,面临着现有规制者与合约方一体、规制机构与企业信息不对称、政府部门承诺有限等规制约束。基于目前的规制环境,我国城市生活垃圾产业在推进民营化的同时,应建立起独立的规制机构,加强监管,逐步纵向一体民营化以降低交易成本,在合约中采用指数化价格分享企业租金。     

城市垃圾处理产业化探讨

随着城市的发展和人口的增加，我国城市垃圾问题日益严重。目前，我国城市垃圾处理主要存在着两方面的问题：即资金问题和技术问题。垃圾处理产业化是解决问题的出路，但需政府为其创造良好的投资运营环境，在制度上保证投资商的回报预期。     

PRIVATIZING GOVERNMENT IRRIGATION PROJECTS IN NEW ZEALAND1

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the sale of the Government. owned irrigation projects in New Zealand, including the development of irrigation projects in New Zealand, the rationale behind the transfer of ownership to existing irrigators, the sale process, and the outcomes. The transfer of ownership to private entities was undertaken primarily to remove the Government from irrigation activities. However, the sales were also thought to have the poten. tial to improve the efficiency of the projects' operation. The sale process was a negotiated process so that maximizing revenues was not the primary objective of the government. In many cases the government paid irrigators to assume ownership of the schemes. Preliminary data suggest that schemes are being more efficiently operated under private ownership. However, additional data need to be collected on a systematic basis to determine the magnitude of any efficiency gains.