This paper analyses how the recent reforms of public utilities affect the households’ welfare. The literature usually addresses this topic focusing on the supply side aspects, that is to say, the effects of these reforms on services efficiency, market competition and economic growth. Nevertheless, theoretical and empirical studies do not reach definitive conclusions about the impact of ownership changes. European Union seems to have adopted these contrasting views and suggests the implementation of different types of public-private partnerships in the provision of public utilities. Most recently a new trend of literature arose which focuses on the demand side to explore the distributional effects of these reforms, because the consumers have often proved to be the crucial economic agents in determining the success or the failure of a reform. To build on this, our paper deals with this issue from a twofold point of view, investigating on the presence of affordability and rationing problems. More in detail, we examine whether (and to what extent) Italian households face difficulties in paying for energy and water services provided by utilities with different ownership structures (public or mixed). In doing so, we rely on the ISAE’s monthly survey on a sample of 2,000 Italian households, carried out according to the European harmonised scheme. The sample is proportional to universe, layered by macro-areas and size of the Council the household lives in. The data usually report information about the households’ economic and financial condition, and since June 2005 households were also asked whether they had faced any difficulties in paying for those services bills and, if so, they had had to lower their consumption habits. A pooling procedure led to a database of over 26,000 households.

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