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...

Some 25 years have elapsed since international financial institutions espoused a package of power sector reform measures that became known as the Washington Consensus. This package encompassed the establishment of autonomous regulatory entities, the vertical and horizontal unbundling of...

We analyze when, and to a lesser extent how, privatization occurred in a group of thirty-five low or middle-income developing countries. The theoretical perspective turns on the concept of net political benefits, which in our model is the primary determinant of privatization policies....