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The History of Water Management in the Iberian PeninsulaThirsting for Efficiency: Technological and Transaction-Cost Explanations for the Municipalisation of Water Supplies

The History of Water Management in the Iberian Peninsula: Thirsting for Efficiency: Technological... [This chapter advances two main explanations for the waterworks’ municipalisation trend after the late nineteenth century. On the one hand, the importance of abundant water in sustaining the technological innovation behind the new sewerage system. On the other hand, the difficulties in designing a proper regulatory framework for private firms in the water industry motivated by the high transaction costs in designing and enforcing contracts. Paradoxically, this argument is based on the study of a European city where private ownership and operation subsisted until the late twentieth century. Asking why Lisbon failed the municipalisation trend flips the conventional question on the reasons for increasing public ownership in water supplies. In a similar way to the deployment of counterfactual arguments for dealing with research questions, asking why municipalisation did not occur is similarly relevant, and perhaps even more illuminating in explaining the municipalisation movement.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

The History of Water Management in the Iberian PeninsulaThirsting for Efficiency: Technological and Transaction-Cost Explanations for the Municipalisation of Water Supplies

Part of the Trends in the History of Science Book Series
Editors: Duarte Rodrigues, Ana; Toribio Marín, Carmen
da Silva, Álvaro Ferreira
The History of Water Management in the Iberian Peninsula — Mar 19, 2020
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References (31)

Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the research projects IF/00322/2014 and PTDC/HARHIS/28627/2017.
ISBN
978-3-030-34060-5
Pages
89 –110
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-34061-2_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[This chapter advances two main explanations for the waterworks’ municipalisation trend after the late nineteenth century. On the one hand, the importance of abundant water in sustaining the technological innovation behind the new sewerage system. On the other hand, the difficulties in designing a proper regulatory framework for private firms in the water industry motivated by the high transaction costs in designing and enforcing contracts. Paradoxically, this argument is based on the study of a European city where private ownership and operation subsisted until the late twentieth century. Asking why Lisbon failed the municipalisation trend flips the conventional question on the reasons for increasing public ownership in water supplies. In a similar way to the deployment of counterfactual arguments for dealing with research questions, asking why municipalisation did not occur is similarly relevant, and perhaps even more illuminating in explaining the municipalisation movement.]

Published: Mar 19, 2020

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