A productivity analysis of the Italian gas retail market

Owing to the process of liberalization, the European energy markets have undergone a radical transformation over the last decade. In this paper we analyse the Italian natural gas market, focusing in particular on retail with the objective of assessing the performance of the natural gas retail operators whilst also taking into account the strategies adopted after the liberalization process. To that aim, company performance is analysed using the Edgeworth index which enables an assessment of levels of both profitability and productivity. Two types of comparisons are carried out based on the processed data. The first of which concerns the size of the company and second regards the degree of specialisation or diversification of the services offered.