Reforming Infrastructure


Book Description

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 in Latin America


Book Description

This publication examines the empirical evidence on the privatisation measures introduced in the Latin American region since the 1980s, in light of recent criticisms of the record of privatisation and allegations of corruption, abuse of market power and neglect of the poor. It includes case studies on the privatisation debate in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru; and sets out recommendations for future reforms.




China in Transition


Book Description

China is a country in the midst of a transition which is inscrutable to almost all observers. The leadership has changed from the 'old guard' to the 'new guard' with hardly a slip. Capitalism is roaring but somehow at the same time doesn't exist. The economy is booming in virtually all areas. The military is growing more powerful each year, many industries are at world level, and China is taking more and more steps to join the international community while being sure as she doesn't snuggle up too closely. Still, with a population of 1.3 billion and staggering poverty in the rural areas making up the vast part of the country, the face of China remains centuries old. Where she goes, nobody knows. This series examines the issues, policies and progress of China's transition.




Ringing in th 20th Century


Book Description

For many countries, recent reforms in telecommunications represent a restoration of the private provision and competition that prevailed in the early part of the 20th century. At that time, just as today, telephone service in countries with competing private providers was superior to service in countries with a state-owned monopoly.




Competition in Telecommunications


Book Description

The authors analyze regulatory reform and the emergence of competitionin network industries using the state-of-the-art theoretical tools ofindustrial organization, political economy, and the economics ofincentives.




The Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law


Book Description

This book focuses on experiences with the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) of 2007 in China. It uses carefully-chosen case studies to examine how the competition authorities in China discuss cases and how they use economic reasoning in their decision-making process. Bringing together comparative perspectives, the expert contributors discuss the practice of the Anti-Monopoly Law in China from the viewpoints of European and American competition policy. Several very current topics are given specific attention, including enforcement, the role of the state, how to define the relevant market and how to apply the AML to regulated industries. The book also indicates the scope for mutual learning on how to improve the AML. The Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law will appeal to competition lawyers, attorneys-at-law dealing with economic law generally, civil servants and policy makers, comparative lawyers and social scientists with an interest in developments in China.




The Financial Economics of Privatization


Book Description

Central to the book's content is its focus on where privatisation stands today and what are the next frontiers, the why and how behind countries who privatise certain industries, and whether privatisation works as an economic tool.




The Future Development of Competition Framework


Book Description

In the march of economic globalization it has become increasingly apparent that divergence in competition policy from one country to another is a major stumbling block. More than any other factor, an international consensus of competition laws is sure to facilitate the clear working interaction among trade, investment, intellectual property rights, and technology transfer that economic progress demands. This forward-looking book offers presents insightful perspectives on how this consensus may be achieved. The Future Development of Competition Framework presents papers and speeches by well-known competition law practitioners versed in competition law and policy, including representatives of national competition authorities. They came from a variety of countries ? including France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Korea and the United States ? to attend a 2003 conference sponsored by the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission. The book reproduces texts of the various contributions to the conference, including a roundtable discussion. Among the topics addressed are the following: mergers and acquisitions; political interests; enforcement policies and sanctions; national cultures and traditions; international cartels; regional cooperation; concentration indexes and dominance indexes; patent pools; financial deregulation; confidentiality measures; technical assistance; striking the right balance between competition and regulation; reconciling competition policy and development policies. Although they are especially valuable for their concentration on the Asia Pacific countries, these discussions will be of incalculable value to practitioners and academics everywhere who are involved in any of the interconnected branches of economic law or policy covered here.




APEC-OECD Co-operative Initiative on Regulatory Reform Structural Reform and Capacity Building Proceedings of the Eighth APEC-OECD Workshop on Regulatory Reform, Gyeongju, Korea, September 2005


Book Description

This series of publications presents studies on regulatory reform in the Asia-Pacific area resulting from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC)-OECD Co-operative Initiative on Regulatory Reform. Most of the documents are conference proceedings, with each proceeding including a summary of the discussions and the papers presented. Some of the papers presented are country-specific and others are issue-specific.