Privatizations are commonly associated with underpricing and undervaluation. Underpricing has received significant attention in the literature, but there is no equivalent literature that explains undervaluation. This paper provides a theoretical model of why regulated privatized assets are prone...

Privatised utilities are typically characterised by both undervaluation and underpricing. When faced with this problem, regulators have tended to employ a market-value approach to determine the regulatory asset base. This paper analyses this approach and shows that it magnifies the impact of any...