Many OECD countries such as the USA, the UK or Switzerland are concerned with the affordability of utility services and the distributional consequences inherent in the pricing strategy of basic goods and services, such as electricity. However, the effectiveness of the electricity tariff as a...

Utility providers, such as energy companies and railway operators, have been long emphasised as driving competition and facilitating investment in broadband markets. Nevertheless, their involvement and contribution to broadband development has varied significantly over time. In the late 1990s,...

This paper shows that the creation of an independent regulatory agency is often not a necessary or sufficient condition to help attract private participation in the operation and financing of the water and sanitation sector in developing countries. However, the odds of an impact are...

This report provides an overview of capacity-building activities undertaken after 18 months of implementation of the PforR and draws the lessons learned that can be replicated by other similar programs in the region and beyond. All activities in this report have been planned and implemented by...

Development and diversification : a case study of the Sultanate of Oman / Ahmed Nawaz Hakro and Bilal Ahmad Pandow -- Trade flows of Oman with its major trade partners : a gravity model approach / Bashir Fida, Chamsuddin Musa and Dharmendra Singh -- Empirical investigation and evaluation of SMEs...

Die Frage nach der angemessenen Höhe der Staatsausgaben nimmt eine zentrale Stellung in der öffentlichen Diskussion ein. Die Beantwortung der Frage erfordert ein Grundverständnis darüber zu schaffen, welche Aufgaben der Staat übernehmen sollte als auch welche Wirkungen von staatlicher...

Die Frage nach der angemessenen Höhe der Staatsausgaben nimmt eine zentrale Stellung in der öffentlichen Diskussion ein. Die Beantwortung der Frage erfordert ein Grundverständnis darüber zu schaffen, welche Aufgaben der Staat übernehmen sollte als auch welche Wirkungen von staatlicher...

This paper provides evidence that ownership and organization matters for the efficiency of provision of public services. In particular, we find that pure private ownership is more efficient than pure public ownership, followed by mixed ownership. The delegation of management in different legal...

Das Gemeinwesen braucht öffentliche Güter: die Wasserversorgung genauso wie den Kindergarten. Doch die öffentlichen Einrichtungen sind unterfinanziert. Deshalb lebt der Staat schon länger von seiner Substanz. Auf Dauer untergräbt diese Entwicklung die Grundlagen unseres Alltagslebens: Die...

Das Gemeinwesen braucht öffentliche Güter: die Wasserversorgung genauso wie den Kindergarten. Doch die öffentlichen Einrichtungen sind unterfinanziert. Deshalb lebt der Staat schon länger von seiner Substanz. Auf Dauer untergräbt diese Entwicklung die Grundlagen unseres Alltagslebens: Die...

"From schools to hospitals, from utilities to food banks, over the past thirty years corporatization has transformed the public sector in Canada. Economic elites take control of public institutions and use business metrics to evaluate their performance, transforming public programs into...

Independent economic regulation is one of the key preconditions to establish rules of the game enabling and encouraging efficient and fair business. Problematic independence, leading to unfair, unpredictable and politically influenced regulatory decisions, increases costs of compliance with such...

Although the future socio-economic benefits of a new fibre-based (“next generation access”, NGA) telecommunications infrastructure seem to be uncontroversial, a universal NGA coverage appears to be a rather unrealistic objective without government intervention. We contend, however, that the...

Bundling under monopoly tends to increase demand and market efficiency, but likely at the expense of transferring consumers' surplus to firms. Public utilities can use this increase in demand to reduce the monthly fee per consumer. To demonstrate it, I conduct a numerical analysis of the effects...

This paper exploits unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in Buenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a nonlinear and non-monotonic relationship between households' accumulated...