Restructuring Public Utilities For Competition

This publication explores the nature and impact of rules which affect the structure of public utility industries.

This publication explores the nature and impact of rules which affect the structure of public utility industries.

Opening with an introductory chapter that covers the driving forces of the reform of network industries, the economics of pro-competitive regulation of them, and the political and institutional traps/complexities of this process, this book goes on to deal with the question of extending reforms to the water and sewage sectors, how complex state/company interactions are in the first and later stages of reform and how hard it is to design regulation in the second generation.

Examine this overview of the complex issues facing restructuring of the electric utilities industry. Understand the economic and political pressures driving deregulation. Grasp the conflicts. This highly readable, expertly written explanation will enable readers to understand and analyze future policy options, determine the risks, and tackle new marketing opportunities.

This book addresses the fundamental issues underlying the debate over electric power regulation and deregulation. After decades of the presumption that the electric power industry was a natural monopoly, recent times have seen a trend of deregulation followed by panicked re-regulation.

Utilities have long been essential for societies, supplying basic services for nations, organizations and households alike. The proper functioning and regulation of utilities is therefore critical for the economy, society and security. History provides an invaluable insight into important issues of the economic and social regulation of utilities and offers guidance for future debates. However, the history of utility regulation – which speaks of changing, diverse and complex experiences around the world – was sidelined or marginalised when economists and policy-makers enthusiastically embraced the question of how to reform the utilities from the 1970s. This book examines in depth the complex regulation and deregulation of energy, communications, transportation and water utilities across Western Europe, the United States, Australia, Brazil, China and India. In each case, attention is drawn to the changing roles of the state, the market and firms in the regulation, organization and delivery of utility services. This book was originally published as a special issue of Business History.