Infrastructure and Public Utilities Privatization in Developing Countries

Infrastructure and Public Utilities Privatization in Developing Countries PDF

Author: Emmanuelle Auriol

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13:

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The paper analyzes governments' tradeoff between fiscal benefits and consumer surplus in privatization reforms of noncompetitive industries in developing countries. Under privatization, the control rights are transferred to private interests so that public subsidies decline. This benefit for tax-payers comes at the cost of price increases for consumers. In developing countries, tight budget constraints imply that privatization may be optimal for low profitability segments. For highly profitable public utilities, the combination of allocative inefficiency and critical budgetary conditions may favor public ownership. Finally, once a market segment gives room for more than one firm, governments prefer to regulate the industry. In the absence of a credible regulatory agency, regulation is achieved through public ownership.

Infrastructure and Public Utilities Privatization in Developing Countries

Infrastructure and Public Utilities Privatization in Developing Countries PDF

Author: Emmanuelle Auriol

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published:

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13:

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The paper analyzes governments' tradeoff between fiscal benefits and consumer surplus in privatization reforms of noncompetitive industries in developing countries. Under privatization, the control rights are transferred to private interests so that public subsidies decline. This benefit for tax-payers comes at the cost of price increases for consumers. In developing countries, tight budget constraints imply that privatization may be optimal for low profitability segments. For highly profitable public utilities, the combination of allocative inefficiency and critical budgetary conditions may favor public ownership. Finally, once a market segment gives room for more than one firm, governments prefer to regulate the industry. In the absence of a credible regulatory agency, regulation is achieved through public ownership.

Reforming Infrastructure

Reforming Infrastructure PDF

Author: Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

Privatization of Water Services in the United States

Privatization of Water Services in the United States PDF

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2002-09-20

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0309074444

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In the quest to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of water and wastewater services, many communities in the United States are exploring the potential advantages of privatization of those services. Unlike other utility services, local governments have generally assumed responsibility for providing water services. Privatization of such services can include the outright sale of system assets, or various forms of public-private partnershipsâ€"from the simple provision of supplies and services, to private design construction and operation of treatment plants and distribution systems. Many factors are contributing to the growing interest in the privatization of water services. Higher operating costs, more stringent federal water quality and waste effluent standards, greater customer demands for quality and reliability, and an aging water delivery and wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure are all challenging municipalities that may be short of funds or technical capabilities. For municipalities with limited capacities to meet these challenges, privatization can be a viable alternative. Privatization of Water Services evaluates the fiscal and policy implications of privatization, scenarios in which privatization works best, and the efficiencies that may be gained by contracting with private water utilities.

Reforming Infrastructure

Reforming Infrastructure PDF

Author: Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

The Impact of Private Sector Participation in Infrastructure

The Impact of Private Sector Participation in Infrastructure PDF

Author: Luis A. Andres

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2008-07-25

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0821374109

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Infrastructure plays a key role in fostering growth and productivity and has been linked to improved earnings, health, and education levels for the poor. Yet Latin America and the Caribbean are currently faced with a dangerous combination of relatively low public and private infrastructure investment. Those investment levels must increase, and it can be done. If Latin American and Caribbean governments are to increase infrastructure investment in politically feasible ways, it is critical that they learn from experience and have an accurate idea of future impacts. This book contributes to this aim by producing what is arguably the most comprehensive privatization impact analysis in the region to date, drawing on an extremely comprehensive dataset.

Institutional Reform, Regulation and Privatization

Institutional Reform, Regulation and Privatization PDF

Author: Rolf W. Künneke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9781781958346

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This book provides evolutionary and institutional perspectives on the reform of infrastructure industries, tracing the development of this process in a number of sectors and countries. The contributors contend that infrastructure based industries such as telecommunications, public transport, water management and energy have been increasingly exposed to the dynamism of the market since becoming privatized, and have therefore been stimulated into short-term efficiency and long-term innovation. Drawing on institutional economic theory backed up with case studies such as the California energy crisis, the Dutch gas industry, oil and electricity companies in Spain and the privatization of Schipol airport in Amsterdam the book focuses on process, driving forces, and actors' roles to explain how new balances are established between competing institutions. The degree to which the processes of institutional change are predictable and the effects of deliberate strategic interventions of governments or private actors are explored. Specific technical and sector aspects and their influence on institutional change in various infrastructures are also discussed.