The impact of productive efficiency and quality of a regulated local public utility on final goods prices and consumers welfare

Abstract

In this paper, we reconstruct the process by which the decisions of a regulated local public utility, in terms of productive efficiency and quality of the service provided, impact on prices of final consumption goods, supplied in a oligopolistic market operating in the same geographic area. We obtain some formula for these effects which can be quantified by estimating firms’ conditional input demand function of the public service and firms’ inverse demand function for this public good, non-rival, component. Finally, we draw the effects of productive efficiency and quality on consumer welfare and cost-of-living, via changes on tariffs, external effects and final goods prices.regulation, x-efficiency, oligopoly, consumer welfare