This paper provides an overview of the political economy of oil in the CIS. It briefly situates the region's oil sector potential in the global context, before analysing the structural features of the oil sectors by country. It examines the ways in which CIS oil industries have been organised...

This paper assesses Brazil’s regulatory framework and agencies for several network industries (electricity, oil and gas, and water and sanitation). Private investment can be encouraged by tackling regulatory uncertainty in many areas. To this end, recent initiatives include a new regulatory...

The gas industry is perhaps Russia’s least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and regulatory functions, and maintains tight...

From the mid-1980s, New Zealand was widely considered to be a leader in liberalising product market regulation (PMR). However, the reform of PMR has lost momentum over recent years. Many areas of PMR are still consistent with best practice, but New Zealand is no longer assessed to be at the...

Policy efforts to revitalise entrepreneurship and investment in Spain are key to generating growth and new jobs. The government has a substantial reform program to make it easier to do business in Spain, which should in some cases be deepened. Boosting economic growth requires a new generation...

The economic crisis in the early 1990s prompted action on reforming the Swedish welfare state and its institutions, including deregulation of a wide range of product markets. In that way, Sweden took early action compared to other OECD countries currently struggling with how to make public...

This paper reviews recent studies on the links between competition, innovation and productivity growth in the long run. From a long-run perspective, one can see that gains from competition-enhancing regulatory reform are likely to exceed static gains observed in the short run since firms will...