In this study we estimate the social impact of privatisation by means of cost-benefit analysis. It includes assessing the performance of the privatised firm against counterfactual situations and examining economic efficiency at points in time as well as assessing the dynamic efficiency of...

Chris Hunt presented Paying for Urban Water Services: Some Insights from Across the Ditch at an ISCR in September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key issues surrounding ubiquity or universal service and equity or net neutrality in telecommunications with applications for New Zealand. This paper in its initial form was presented at the conference "Telecommunications: Ubquity and Equity in a...

The large-scale roll-out of so-called 'smart' electricity meters that record electricity consumption at frequent intervals gives electricity retailers the opportunity to vary price over the course of a day potentially better matching price to production cost. Of interest to both retailers and...

We study mobile data providers' pricing strategies and incentives to enter voluntary reciprocal international data roaming agreements. We show that roaming fees and retail prices charged to mobile data users at home and abroad vary under asymmetries in the domestic competition of providing...

The Treasury requested tenders for an empirical evaluation of the impact on the New Zealand economy of the privatisation of NZ Rail Limited now Tranz Rail Ltd. Their terms of reference were to: determine the nature and extent of the economic welfare gains andlosses resulting from the...

Pinar Bagci presented Making Economic Regulation More Effective: The Case of NZ Electricity Networks in Wellington July 2007.

In many countries current water-pricing policies are dictated by the sole objective of breaking-even in each period. This results in large withdrawals which are not sustainable in the long-run hence not optimal. In this paper I derive the optimal dynamic water resource management policy of a...

Bronwyn Howell and Dave Heatley's presentation at the recent Internet New Zealand Ultrafast Broadband Workshop held in Wellington on 19 May 2010.

Current Comment is an occasional series providing economic commentary on topical issues. This second issue looks at local loop unbundling and whether this has increased New Zealand's broadband uptake.