Social impact assessment:A case study of a sewerage project in Barbados

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons of social impacts of projects in developing countries despite of thorough impact assessment in appraisal phase of projects. A case study approach on a sewerage project in Barbados was undertaken using primary and secondary information. The study reveals that although the impact assessment report suggested appropriate mitigation measures, but they were not implemented by the contractors. The study suggests fostering an interconnected and symbiotic relationship between appraisal and implementation phases of a project in order to manage project environment. Additionally, a more vigilant and proactive supervisory role should be instituted and strengthened over time and adapted within the dictates of environmental needs. Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Social impact assessment of a sewerage project in Barbados

This report investigates why a nationally important and internationally funded infrastructural project within the Caribbean island of Barbados — The South Coast Sewerage Project — spurned a substantial level of negative socio-economic externalities. Primary and secondary research evaluated the presence or effectiveness of social impact assessment as a mitigation tool. The mitigation measures suggested within the appraisal report appear to have been considered by the Project Execution Unit (PEU) of Government of Barbados. The primary obstacle seems to have been the implementation of the mitigation process by the contractor. This highlights the need to foster an interconnected and symbiotic relationship between appraisal and implementation, if an initiative is to be conducted efficiently and effectively. Additionally, the South Coast Sewerage Project exemplifies the importance of establishing and sustaining a monitoring/control mechanism as an integral part of project construction.

Determining the contribution of technical change, efficiency change and scale change to productivity growth in the privatized English and Welsh water and sewerage industry:1985-2000

The water and sewerage industry of England and Wales was privatized in 1989 and subjected to a new regime of environmental, water quality and RPI+K price cap regulation. This paper estimates a quality-adjusted input distance function, with stochastic frontier techniques in order to estimate productivity growth rates for the period 1985-2000. Productivity is decomposed so as to account for the impact of technical change, efficiency change, and scale change. Compared with earlier studies by Saal and Parker [(2000) Managerial Decision Econ 21(6):253-268, (2001) J Regul Econ 20(1): 61-90], these estimates allow a more careful consideration of how and whether privatization and the new regulatory regime affected productivity growth in the industry. Strikingly, they suggest that while technical change improved after privatization, productivity growth did not improve, and this was attributable to efficiency losses as firms appear to have struggled to keep up with technical advances after privatization. Moreover, the results also suggest that the excessive scale of the WaSCs contributed negatively to productivity growth. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The comparative impact of privatisation and regulation on productivity growth in the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry, 1985-99

After the 10 regional water authorities of England and Wales were privatized in November 1989, the successor WASCs (water and sewerage companies) faced a new regulatory regime that was designed to promote productivity growth while simultaneously improving drinking water and environmental quality. As legally mandated quality improvements necessitated a costly capital investment programme, the industry's economic regulator – the Office of Water Services – implemented a RPI + K pricing system, designed to compensate the WASCs for their capital investment programme while also encouraging faster rates of productivity growth. This paper considers the relative effects of privatization and regulation on productivity growth in the industry using both non-parametric and parametric methods to provide a crosscheck on the robustness of the results. While there is evidence that labour productivity improved after privatization, there is no evidence that privatization led to a growth in TFP (total factor productivity). However, there is some evidence of a small increase in the rate of TFP growth in the aftermath of a substantial tightening of the regulatory regime that took place in 1995. These results, therefore, are consistent with evidence from other research that privatization, in the absence of effective competition and/or regulation, is not necessarily associated with improved economic performance.

Productivity and price performance in the privatized water and sewerage companies of England and Wales

After its privatization in 1989, the water and sewerage industry of England and Wales faced a new regulatory régime and implemented a substantial capital investment program aimed at improving water and environmental standards. A new RPI + K regulatory pricing system was designed to compensate the industry for its increased capital costs, encourage increased efficiency, and maintain fair prices for customers. This paper evaluates how successful privatization and the resulting system of economic regulation has been. Estimates of productivity growth, derived with quality adjusted output indices, suggest that despite reductions in labor usage, total factor productivity growth has not improved since privatization. Moreover, total price performance indices reveal that increases in output prices have outstripped increases in input costs, a trend which is largely responsible for the increase in economic profits that has occurred since privatization. * We would like to thank Emmanuel Thanassoulis, Joshy Easaw, Jim Love, John Sawkins, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.

Comparative performance measurement in regulation: The case of English and Welsh sewerage services

This paper discusses the use of comparative performance measurement by means of Data Envelopment Analysis in the context of the regulation of English and Welsh water companies. Specifically, the use of Data Envelopment Analysis to estimate potential cost savings in sewerage is discussed as it fed into the price review of water companies carried out by the regulator of water companies in 1994. The application is used as a vehicle for highlighting generic issues in terms of assessing the impact of factors on the ranking of units on performance, the insights gained from using alternative methods to assess comparative performance, and the issue of assessing comparative performance when few in number but highly complex entities are involved. The paper should prove of interest to those interested in regulation and, more generally, in the use of methods of comparative performance measurement.