Most theories on private sector participation in water infrastructure are based on the sole supposed difference of efficiency between the public and the private sector. The review of 22 empirical tests and 51 case studies shows that private sector participation per se in water supply does not...

This paper investigates to what extent unregulated local monopolies attempt not to evoke the introduction of a formal price regulation by conforming to customers' and authorities' expectations. It is argued that utilities can meet expectations by setting prices that imitate neighbours' prices....

We analyze the economic consequences of strategic delegation of the right to decide between public or private provision of a governmental service and/or the authority to negotiate and renegotiate with the chosen service provider. Our model encompasses both bureaucratic delegation from a...

This paper carries out an overview of the recent history of privatisation in Spain. At this point, the paper focuses on the analysis of the economic, financial and political objectives pursued by successive Spanish Administrations. It is argued that privatisation policy has been inconsistent...

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Postal Services play a fundamental role in each nation, because of the double impact they generate from a social and economic point of view. The introduction of the European directives opens the way towards a larger importance of free competition. But, even if liberalisation of postal markets...

Government regulation in markets is ubiquitous and takes many forms. In this paper we are concerned with two forms of such intervention- economic regulation and competition law and policy - and their relationship within the context of EU regulated markets (i.e. energy, telecommunications, water,...

We make a positive analysis of the impact of market structure and political preferences on a (local) government's decision to privatize a given service using the framework of Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997). We argue that although outsourcing is more attractive when the private market is...

Adaptive contracting occurs when a principal experiments with the delegation of authority through leaving contracts incomplete. We highlight two potential benefits of adaptive contracting: First, the delegation of authority can be advantageous even if the agent acts opportunistically, since...

Until the reforms in the early 1990s, Argentina's public services were sick. Rationing in level and quality were the norm. Privatization, among the many reforms introduced by the Menem administration, felt then as a cure. Argentina was the 'poster boy' of privatization in the world. For the last...