Power sector subsidies constituted 83 percent of the federal government’s total subsidies of PRs 558 billion in 2012; the tariff differential subsidy (TDS) amounted to PRs 457 billion. TDS is provided to distribution companies (DISCOs) to cover the difference between the NEPRA-approved tariff...

Environmental regulation can be broadly divided into those that follow the top-down and bottom-up approaches. The two approaches have similar objective with respect to environmental protection and sustainability. However, the success with which each approach achieves goals of environmental...

Public infrastructure services have been subject to dramatic regulatory reform since the 1980s in the European Union, particularly privatization, at the national level, and increased liberalization and deregulation, via the Single Market Programme. Despite this ambitious reform programme, there...

This paper investigates the interaction between corruption and infrastructure policy reforms.  I construct a simple model to illustrate how both an incerase in regulatory autonomy and privatisation may influence the effect of corruption.  This interaction is then analysed empirically using a...

Theory and empirics suggest that by curbing competition, incumbent electricity companies which used to be and here are referred to as Vertically Integrated Utilities (VIUs), can increase their profitability through combined ownership of generation and transmission and/or distribution networks....

Many in the energy sector are calling for a transformation of the traditional utility model. However, proposals for “Utility 2.0” typically maintain the bilateral, adversarial relationship between the utility and its regulator. This article posits that one of the key flaws in the U.S....

Limited electricity restructuring has occurred in Canada. This chapter focuses on the electricity sector restructuring initiatives of Canada's most populous province, Ontario, examining the province's restructuring process and experiences, the aftermath of re-regulation and the lessons learned....

Independent regulatory authorities are a basic prerequisite for a successful liberalization process. However, contrary to what is expected, both graphical analyses and OLS regressions for a small sample of electricity and gas regulators operating in 16 European countries reveal a negative...

The Italian regulatory authority is working towards the introduction of voltage quality regulation. To this end, it initiated a power quality measuring campaign and a study of customer costs. This paper summarizes the main results of these activities and provides evidence that economic losses...

The paper reviews the situation with regard to the electricity sector and the failure of policy and regulation. It argues for direct subsidy and a market oriented unbundling of the sector to take the sector forward. It also brings out the failure of the IPP policy and the costs that it has...