Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Contracts, organizations, and institutions
- Part III Law and economics
- Part IV Theoretical developments: where do we stand?
- Part V Testing contract theories
- Part VI Applied issues: contributions to industrial organization
- Part VII Policy issues: anti-trust and regulation of public utilities
- 22 Inter-company agreements and EC competition law
- 23 Incentive contracts in utility regulation
- 24 Contractual choice and performance: the case of water supply in France
- 25 Institutional or structural: lessons from international electricity sector reforms
- 26 Electricity sector restructuring and competition: a transactions-cost perspective
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Subject index
25 - Institutional or structural: lessons from international electricity sector reforms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Contracts, organizations, and institutions
- Part III Law and economics
- Part IV Theoretical developments: where do we stand?
- Part V Testing contract theories
- Part VI Applied issues: contributions to industrial organization
- Part VII Policy issues: anti-trust and regulation of public utilities
- 22 Inter-company agreements and EC competition law
- 23 Incentive contracts in utility regulation
- 24 Contractual choice and performance: the case of water supply in France
- 25 Institutional or structural: lessons from international electricity sector reforms
- 26 Electricity sector restructuring and competition: a transactions-cost perspective
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
The widespread privatization of national electricity sectors across both the developing and developed world provides a broad base of experience to assess the relative performance of various countries in attracting private sector participation in the industry. Since 1980, when Chile commenced a radical restructuring, and later privatization program, over sixty countries have introduced reforms in the electricity sector. These reforms have been generally designed with the purpose of increasing the levels of private ownership and investment, thereby reducing the dominance of the state-owned vertically integrated enterprise, the traditional mode of organization. There is substantial variability in the nature of these reforms. Some countries have invited private investment in the generation sector only, financed by long-term supply contracts to state-owned utilities (e.g. China, India, Indonesia, Mexico); some have vertically separated the industry but privatized only part of the sector (e.g. Colombia, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, New Zealand); while others have privatized the entire industry and additionally created competitive generation markets (e.g. Argentina, Chile, United Kingdom).
The degree of private sector interest, however, has been markedly mixed across countries. There have been some notable successes in attracting significant levels of private investment in all sectors of the industry (e.g. Argentina, Australia, United Kingdom). On the other hand, private investors have shown little interest in purchasing state-owned enterprises or in financing de novo infrastructure assets in countries such as Mexico, Turkey, or the Ukraine, to name only a few. Indeed some countries, including Hungary and Venezuela, have had to postpone planned privatization programs owing to lack of investor interest.
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- Information
- The Economics of ContractsTheories and Applications, pp. 463 - 502Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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