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...

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...

The authors review the applications of noncooperative bargaining theory to water related issues-which fall in the category of formal models of negotiation. They aim to identify the conditions under which agreements are likely to emerge and their characteristics, to support policymakers in...

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...

The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of Uruguay's privatization and subsequent nationalization of water services on network access and water quality. The results suggest that although the early privatization of water services had little impact on access to the sanitation network,...

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...

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...

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...