Utility Privatization And Regulation

An in-depth analysis of the impact of public utility privatization on ordinary consumers. This text traces the history of energy and water privatization and documents the community and consumer sectors' various attempts to influence the structure of privatization and regulation.

The authors address the question of infrastructure reforms in a novel way by focusing on the impact which they can have on consumers through the prices paid by different groups and on their access to the networks. They analyse original material from four

David Newbery argues that network utilities pose special problems of ownership and 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.

The book is structured into four parts. Part I, comprising chapters 1-3, explores the backgrounds and motives of private operation of urban public utilities, analyzes the history and current status of private operations, and constructs the performance evaluation system. Part II includes chapter 4 and chapter 5. Recognizing that private operation of urban public utilities and government regulation are highly interdependent, this part investigates the negative effects that may arise from private operation of public utilities as well as their causes, analyzes the demand for government regulations on private operations, and discusses the supply of government regulations in terms of regulatory system, regulatory institutions, and regulatory policies. Part III is composed of chapters 6, 7, and 8. This part focuses on three public utility areas: urban water supply, gas pipeline, and garbage disposal. It investigates the technical and economic features and the current status of private operation reforms in these three areas, evaluates the performance of private operation in each area, and explores the main contents of government regulations and policies in each utility area. Chapter 9 is treated as an independent part of the book. Based on the summary and analyses about the success and problems in private operation of China's urban public utilities, this last part provides some basic ideas that can be used to promote and deepen the reforms of private operation of urban public utilities.

This book is a study on the Japanese city gas industry, which has been rapidly liberalized in recent years. Especially, it focuses on the background, reasons, methods, and effects of the privatization of publicly owned city gas utilities in Japan. In Japan, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the liberalization of the electric power and gas business has progressed rapidly. There are a number of studies on the reform of Japan's electricity market, but there are few studies on city gas business. This book describes the state of Japan's public city gas utilities and the necessity of their privatization. And it explains the role of concession as a method of privatization. Then it verifies that the effects of past privatization cases are insufficient. The book also covers deregulation of public utilities in Europe, which triggered Japan's liberalization of its energy and other public utility sectors, and privatization of electricity and gas businesses in India, a developing country in Asia. Finally, this book explores future regulation and business of city gas industry. Pipeline network should be regulated to comply with future unbundling starting from 2022, and gas business altogether with electricity and water businesses need more digitization.