Resetting Price Controls for Privatized Utilities


Book Description

QUOTEThe aim of regulation is to protect consumers, while ensuring that the company remains viable and has an incentive to operate efficiently.QUOTEIn many developing countries private companies are replacing government agencies as owners and operators of infrastructure services. Governments must now develop new skills in economic regulation of these private providers to protect consumer interests, while also ensuring that the companies remain economically and financially sound and have incentives to operate efficiently. This manual provides new economic regulators with practical guidance on how to proceed in this fairly technical new field.Chapters cover: · Revising Price Controls · Procedures for Resetting a Price Control · Present Value Calculations · Investment and the Regulatory Asset Base · The Rate of Return · The Philosophy of Price Controls · The Form of a Price Control · Operating Costs · Revenues




Regulatory Economics and Quantitative Methods


Book Description

Regulatory Economics and Quantitative Methods comprises original contributions by leading researchers working on issues relating to regulation in Latin America. They focus on regulation in infrastructure industries and attempt to show how quantitative analysis can contribute to more effective regulation. In particular, they discuss central issues relating to the measures used for benchmarking natural monopolies, incentives and contractual arrangements used in the regulatory environment and the impact of regulation and regulatory processes.




Legal Frameworks for Transparency in Water Utilities Regulation


Book Description

Transparency in the regulation of water utilities is essential in order to ensure quality and fairness. This book explores and compares different regulatory arrangements in the water utilities sectors in three jurisdictions to determine which regulatory and ownership model is most transparent and why. The three jurisdictions considered are England (UK), Victoria (Australia) and Jakarta (Indonesia). Following an introduction to the importance of transparency in water utilities regulation, the book provides an overview of the three chosen jurisdictions and their legal and institutional frameworks. Through a comparison of these the author explores the contested and difficult terrain of "privatization", as (often) opposed to public ownership, in which it is shown that the relationships between transparency and ownership models are not as clear-cut as might be assumed. Chapters consider various aspects and outcomes of the regulatory process and the role of transparency, including topics such as regulators' internal governance mechanisms, utilities corporate governance, licensing and information flow, freedom of information and transparency in tariffs and pricing, as well as customer service. The book concludes with a summary of lessons learned to inform the refinement of transparency in utilities regulation.




The Regulation of Investment in Utilities


Book Description

"Drawing on a worldwide series of case studies from across the regulated sectors, this paper illustrates the various approaches to regulating investment and some of the practical implementation problems that are faced. This allows some tentative suggestions for the design of practical investment regimes to be developed, depending upon the circumstances of the situation in hand."--Jacket.




Energy Economics


Book Description

Since its modest beginning in the 1970s, the academic and research focus on energy has grown substantially and energy has established itself as an independent, interdisciplinary subject area. It attracts attention from people in a range of different fields including engineers, scientists, geologists, environmentalists, bankers, investors, policy makers and politicians. Energy Economics introduces the basic concepts of energy economics and explains how simple economic tools can be used to analyse contemporary energy issues. Energy Economics is organised into six parts that give the reader a thorough grounding in various key aspects of the subject: basic demand-related concepts and ideas used in energy economics; supply-side economics; energy markets, with specific emphasis on oil, gas and coal; the application of simple economic principles in analysing contemporary energy issues; environmental aspects of energy use; and regulatory and governance issues. Energy Economics is an easily accessible reference book for students of energy economics at the postgraduate level, as well as for a wider interdisciplinary audience. It provides readers with the skills required to understand and analyse complex energy issues from an economic perspective.




Privatization and Regulation of Transport Infrastructure


Book Description

The 1990s saw an increase in the liberalisation of transport policies and a strengthening of the role of private operators and investors in transport infrastructure worldwide. The search for sustained improvement in efficiency is probably secondary to the need to find additional financing, but it is improvement in services that is at the core of the new role of the government in transport. Governments must now become fair economic regulators of many of the privately operated transport services and infrastructures. This book examines the major challenges that governments are likely to face in taking on their new role in transport.




Regulation of the Power Sector


Book Description

Regulation of the Power Sector is a unified, consistent and comprehensive treatment of the theories and practicalities of regulation in modern power-supply systems. The need for generation to occur at the time of use occasioned by the impracticality of large-scale electricity storage coupled with constant and often unpredictable changes in demand make electricity-supply systems large, dynamic and complex and their regulation a daunting task. Arranged in four parts, this book addresses both traditional regulatory frameworks and also liberalized and re-regulated environments. First, an introduction gives a full characterization of power supply including engineering, economic and regulatory viewpoints. The second part presents the fundamentals of regulation and the third looks at the regulation of particular components of the power sector in detail. Advanced topics and subjects still open or subject to dispute form the content of Part IV. In a sector where regulatory design is the key driver of both the industry efficiency and the returns on investment, Regulation of the Power Sector is directed at regulators, policy decision makers, business managers and researchers. It is a pragmatic text, well-tested by the authors’ quarter-century of experience of power systems from around the world. Power system professionals and students at all levels will derive much benefit from the authors’ wealth of blended theory and real-world-derived know-how.




Approaches to Private Participation in Water Services


Book Description

Annotation This informative toolkit provides options for the design of policies to facilitate the delivery of good quality water and sanitation services to the poor. It highlights the need for tariffs, investment, stakeholder consultation, and regulatory policies to address the affordability and sustainability of those services.




A Primer on Efficiency Measurement for Utilities and Transport Regulators


Book Description

Annotation Options and guidelines for measuring the efficiency of recently privatized utilities (electricity, gas, water, sewerage, telecommunications, airports, ports, rail).




Public Private Partnerships in the Water Sector


Book Description

Public sector funding and resources are often inadequate to meet increasing demands for investment and effective management, and a growing case history shows increasing involvement by the private sector in provision of infrastructure and services through PPP arrangements. The objective of this book is to determine, and make recommendations on, means of optimizing the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in development of infrastructure whilst ensuring the sustainable long term provision of water and waste water services. The focus is on providing detailed recommendations on contractual issues and contract structures to achieve this objective. Public Private Partnerships in the Water Sector - Innovation and Financial Sustainability: Identifies what is needed to establish effective and sustainable water and wastewater service reform when using a PPP arrangement, and importantly how those issues can be addressed contractually. Provides specific recommendations of a comprehensive and detailed approach to contract drafting to ensure effective, sustainable and long term provision of water and wastewater services, including an approach for adaptation of public procurement procedures for PPP arrangements. Recommends a proposed approach to dealing with the influence of imperfect or unavailable data on the long term effectiveness or sustainability. This is a practical and pragmatic book in which the authors share their considerable experience on devising and implementing PPPs in the water sector. It is aimed primarily at practitioners working with developing countries but its recommendations will also be suitable for application in developed countries. It is also a useful reference for postgraduates and academics studying infrastructure development. See also: Public and Private Participation in the Water and Wastewater Sector - Developing Sustainable Legal Mechanisms, Cledan Mandri-Perrott, 2009 Private Sector Participation in Water Infrastructure, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2009.