In the fuel business, smuggling, adulteration, mislabeling, and short-weighting are widespread in many developing counties. Not only do these commercial abuses reduce consumer welfare and government excise revenue but the combustion of substandard fuels can have a serious public health impact....

The vehicle inspection program in Mexico City is regard as one of the most successful in a developing country. As the program evolved it suffered the problem common to most such scheme in developing countries -- high levels of evasion. But the program now operates well, through high volume,...

The pace of technological advance in the past few decades has opened new possibilities. Consider the technology for controlling emissions from cars, buses, and trucks. Government regulations have driven this technology as much as the technology has driven regulations, resulting in vehicle...

Resource flows from extractive industries can be a lifeline for postconflict countries, helping to fund critical reconstruction needs. But these resources present issues not found elsewhere in the economy and need to be well managed. Sector governance principles that apply to oil-producing...

Many developing countries are becoming oil exporters, producing crude oils that often differ markedly in quality from those principally traded. Governments must predict the prices of such crudes, to forecast revenue and evaluate the fairness of the price they receive from companies selling on...

Recent World Bank analysis shows that taxes on petroleum products are a critical source of government revenue for low-income countries. And if the experience of industrial countries serves as any guide, the rates of these taxes will have to rise sharply as low-income economies develop. But...

Only a handful of developing countries have fully reformed their energy sector - oil, gas, and power. A World Bank Survey of 115 developing countries shows that on average, in mid-1998 just 39 percent of key reform steps had been carried out. There are large variations among countries in the...

The 1990 power reforms in England and Wales were designed to permit the introduction of competition at both the retail and the wholesale level. Generation was both vertically separated from transmission and horizontally separated. The sector was almost completely privatized-only the nuclear...

Introducing independent power producers (IPPs) into a power system where existing generators are inefficient can deliver more efficient investment. But it is not sufficient to achieve the operating benefits of competition. Key to determining whether or not the IPPs and the system as a whole will...