Privatization of infrastructure services is often followed by stricter enforcement of quality standards, which raises costs, maintaining, or worsening the exclusion of the poor. The poor would get easier access to service, if the main provider was permitted to deviate from this uniform standard,...

In the United States the courts have long been involved in the oversight of regulators. In the United Kingdom, which created its utility regulators from scratch in the 1980s, an alternative system was sought. This system centers on three concerns: the procedure followed by the regulator, the...