Benchmarking the performance of water companies for regulatory purposes to improve its sustainability

Abstract The regulation of water companies (WCs) is essential to protect the interests citizens, as are natural monopolies. Consequently, several methodological approaches applied by regulators benchmark performance WCs, with data envelopment analysis (DEA) being one most widely applied. However, traditional DEA models allocate different weights variables considered in efficiency assessments each WC. By contrast, this study proposes and applies a common set (CSW) model sample Chilean WCs. results showed that DEA-CSW approach had greater discriminatory capacity compared techniques. Moreover, allocated input output involved assessment diverged among WCs when was employed. generated reliable ranking based on their scores, thus facilitating regulatory decision-making process.