No abstract

Privatization, Competition, Regulation, Developing economies, Electricity sector, L33, L43, L44, L50, 012, O38, O50,

Under pressure from donor agencies and international financial institutions such as the World Bank, some developing countries have experimented with the privatization of water services. This article reviews the econometric evidence on the effects of water privatization in developing economies and presents new results using statistical data envelopment analysis and stochastic cost frontier techniques and data from Africa. The analysis fails to show evidence of better performance by private utilities than by stateowned utilities. Among the reasons why water privatization could prove problematic in lower-income economies are the technology of water provision and the nature of the product, transaction costs, and regulatory weaknesses.

Recent years have seen countries introducing reform of their utility industries with a view to promoting private ownership and competition. This paper studies the effect of the sequencing of privatisation, competition and regulation reforms in electricity generation using data from 25 developing countries for the period 1985 to 2001. A fixed effects panel data model is used. The study finds that establishing an independent regulatory authority and introducing competition before privatisation is correlated with higher electricity generation, higher generation capacity and, in the case of the sequence of competition before privatisation, improved capital utilisation.