期刊名称：DIW Diskussionspapiere / Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
出版年度：2009
卷号：2009
出版社：Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
摘要：In January 2009 Germany introduced incentive regulation for the electricity
distribution sector based on results obtained from econometric and nonparametric
benchmarking analysis. One main problem for the regulator in assigning the
relative efficiency scores are unobserved firm-specific factors such as network
and technological differences. Comparing the efficiency of different firms
usually assumes that they operate under the same production technology, thus
unobserved factors might be inappropriately understood as inefficiency. To avoid
this type of misspecification in regulatory practice estimation is carried out
in two stages: in a first stage observations are classified into two categories
according to the size of the network operators. Then separate analyses are
conducted for each sub-group. This paper shows how to disentangle the
heterogeneity from inefficiency in one step, using a latent class model for
stochastic frontiers. As the classification is not based on a priori sample
separation criteria it delivers more robust, statistical significant and
testable results. Against this backround we analyze the level of technical
efficiency of a sample of 200 regional and local German electricity distribution
companies for a balanced panel data set (2001-2005). Testing the hypothesis if
larger distributors operate under a different technology than smaller ones we
assess if a single step latent class model provides new insights to the use of
benchmarking approaches within the incentive regulation schemes.
关键词：Stochastic frontiers, latent class model, electricity distribution, incentive
regulation
