Yardstick Regulation of Electricity Distribution—Disentangling Short-run and Long-run Inefficiencies
研究了挪威电力配电公司2000-2013年的短期、长期和总体效率，发现技术变化和规模报酬在不同模型中稳健，但效率得分相关性不强，提醒监管者谨慎选择模型用于激励。
In this paper we estimate the short-run, long-run and overall efficiency of Norwegian electricity distribution companies for the period 2000-2013 controlling for both noise and company effects. Short-run inefficiency is the part of inefficiency that is allowed to adjust freely over time for each company, but long-run (persistent) inefficiency remains constant over time, although it is allowed to vary across companies. For robustness check we also consider two additional models in which either company effects are not controlled or these are treated as inefficiency. The production technology is represented by a translog input distance function in all three models. We find that technical change and returns to scale are quite robust across the models. However, the efficiency scores across the three models we consider are not correlated strongly. We conclude that the regulators and practitioners should take extra caution in using the proper model in practice, especially when the efficiency measures are used to reward/punish companies through incentives for better performance.