Università della Svizzera italiana

Economies of vertical integration in the Swiss electricity sector

Fetz, Aurelio ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Energy economics, 2010, vol. 32, no. 6, p. 1325-1330

Over the last two decades, several European nations have introduced reforms to their electricity sector. Generally, these reforms require a legal and functional unbundling of vertically integrated companies. These unbundling processes may reduce the possibilities that exist to fruitfully exploit the advantages of vertical integration. The goal of this paper is to empirically analyze the...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Benchmarking and regulation in the electricity distribution sector

Mehdi, Farsi ; Fetz, Aurelio ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Servizi pubblici: nuove tendenze nella regolamentazione nella produzione e nel finanziamento, 2007, p. 159-176

In the last two decades electricity distribution sector have witnessed a wave of regulatory reforms aimed at improving efficiency through incentive regulation. Most of these regulation schemes use benchmarking namely measuring a company’s efficiency and rewarding them accordingly. The reliability of efficiency estimates is crucial for an effective implementation of those incentive mechanisms. A...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Economies of scale and scope in multi-utilities

Farsi, Mehdi ; Fetz, Aurelio ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Energy journal, 2008, vol. 29, no. 4, p. 123-143

This paper explores the economies of scale and scope in the electricity, gas and water utilities. These issues have a crucial importance in the actual policy debates about unbundling the integrated utilities into separate entities, a policy which has often been supported by the ongoing reforms in the deregulation of network industries. This paper argues that the potential improvements in...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Economies of scale and scope in local public transportation

Farsi, Mehdi ; Fetz, Aurelio ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 2007, vol. 41, no. 3, p. 345-361

This paper analyzes the cost structure of the Swiss urban public transport sector in order to assess scale and scope economies. A multi-output cost function has been estimated for a panel data set of companies operating trolley-bus, motor-bus and tramway systems. The results suggest increasing returns to scale and economies of scope. This analysis has important policy implications in view of the...