This paper studies the governance structure of state-owned enterprises in the water and electricity sectors of Latin America and the Caribbean. Through a unique dataset, the paper compares 44 leading state companies of the region based on an aggregate measure of corporate governance and six...

Given the relatively small segment of the population that faces genuine affordability problems in Latin America, there appears to be a promising case for using targeted subsidies to reconcile the cost recovery objective with social protection concerns. Social tariff schemes of various kinds are...

Introducing private sector participation (PSP) into the water and sewerage sectors in developing countries is difficult and controversial. Empirical studies on its effects are scant and generally inconclusive. Case studies tend to find improvements in the sector following privatization, but they...

In public-private partnership transactions in the water sector, one of the alleged concerns is that there is little market competition at the auction stage. This paper casts light on a tradeoff between the competition effect at the auction level and potential economies of scale in service...

An important infrastructure policy issue for rapidly growing cities in developing countries is how to raise fiscal revenues to finance basic services in a fair and efficient manner. This paper applies hedonic analysis that explicitly accounts for spatial spillovers to derive the value of...

Water policy is an important topic on the agenda of the international community, and efficiency and equity in the allocation of water have emerged as important factors to be considered. Water pricing can be used to mitigate both the quantity and quality dimensions of water scarcity. This paper...

Using data from the International Benchmarking NETwork database, the authors estimate measures of density and scale economies in the water industry in four countries (Brazil, Colombia, Moldova, and Vietnam) that differ substantially in economic development, piped water and sewerage coverage, and...

This paper summarizes the methods and findings of the hydrological assessment component of the project studying likely impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in Africa. The first phase of the study used a version of a conceptual rainfall-runoff model called WatBal (Water...

In the early 2000s, the Government of Sri Lanka considered engaging private sector operators to manage water and sewerage services in two separate service areas: one in the town of Negombo (north of Colombo), and one stretching along the coastal strip (south from Colombo) from the towns of...

The authors show how willingness to pay surveys can be used to gauge household demand for improved network water and sanitation services. They do this by presenting a case-study from Sri Lanka, where they surveyed approximately 1,800 households in 2003. Using multivariate regression, they show...