Privatisation is widely promoted as a means of improving economic performance in developing countries. However, the policy remains controversial and the relative roles of ownership and other structural changes, such as competition and regulation, in promoting economic efficiency remain...

Under pressure from donor agencies such as the World Bank, a number of developing countries have experimented with the privatisation of water services. This study reviews the existing econometric evidence on the effects of water privatisation in developing economies before presenting new results...

Trade liberalisation of environmental services under the current WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been widely advocated as a means of increasing private sector participation in the water sector in developing countries. The liberalisation of water services in lower income...

Rate of return or cost of service regulation was the traditional means by which governments, especially in the USA, regulated profitability and prices in privately-owned public utility businesses. However, rate of return regulation was associated with efficiency disincentives. Hence, in 1983...

Effective and efficient regulation by government is important for economic development. Effective and efficient regulation promotes economic development, while vexatious regulation can cripple it. Many of the problems of developing countries are blamed on ineffective and inefficient government...

Over the last two decades electricity sectors in both developed and developing countries have been subject to restructuring to introduce private capital and increase competition. This has been accompanied by the introduction of new regulatory regimes. Although the effects of such reforms in a...

Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) has been adopted in most OECD countries to improve regulatory decision making. RIA involves a systematic appraisal of the costs and benefits associated with a proposed new regulation and evaluation of the performance of existing regulations. Although RIA...