"Household surveys have long been used to estimate poverty and inequality trends, as well as trends in education and health indicators, but they have not been used to the same extent to assess trends in the access to or coverage of modern infrastructure services. In this paper, we use...

While consumer utility subsidies are widespread in both the water and electricity sectors, their effectiveness in reaching and distributing resources to the poor is the subject of much debate. This publication brings together empirical evidence on subsidy performance across a wide range of...

Subsidies to residential utility customers are popular among policymakers, utility managers, and utility customers alike, but they are nonetheless the subject of much controversy. Utility subsidies are seen as a way to help make utility service affordable for poor households and as an...

Utility subsidies to consumers of water and electricity services are often justified as a mechanism for making services affordable for the poor. After all, an estimated 1.1 billion people in the developing world lack access to safe water, 2 billion are without electricity, and 2.4 billion...

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Background -- Investment and Reform Needs -- Competition Rules and Regulatory Design -- Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Linkages between Infrastructure Reforms and Poverty -- Macroeconomic Linkages -- Microeconomic Linkages --...