No. 01/2005

Various government-owned businesses provide water supply services to Australian residents. With the advent of recent competition and regulatory reforms in infrastructure industries in Australia, more and more of these businesses are now facing new types of incentive-based regulatory regimes. This has led to a desire for more information on the performance of these businesses, both relative to each other and over time. In this study we use panel data on the 18 largest Australian water services businesses, observed over an eight-year period from 1995/6 to 2002/3, to measure the relative efficiency and productivity growth of these businesses. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods are used to obtain estimates of the multi-input, multi-output production technology. The potential use of these performance measures in price-cap regulation is discussed, where the effects of variable selection and data quality upon empirical results is emphasised