International Comparisons of Electricity Regulation

by Edited by Richard J. Gilbert , Edward P. Kahn

• ISBN13: 9780521030779
• ISBN10: 0521030773
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book offers a most comprehensive characterization of the historical, institutional and economic forces affecting electricity regulation. Eminent economists organized by the University of California Energy Institute survey the USA, UK, Scandinavia, Latin America, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Yugoslavia. Recent experiments with privatization, competition and restructuring in electricity are contrasted with instances where government ownership and traditional vertical integration still dominate. The introductory essay by Richard J. Gilbert, Edward P. Kahn and David Newbery synthesizes individual country studies. In any regulatory system, the government must bargain with investors and consumers to satisfy conflicting interests. The opacity of information about cost constrains this process. Governments also impose multiple political and economic objectives on the electricity industry, which further obscures cost conditions. Privatization and deregulation tend to reverse these effects. Few countries, however, have managed to sustain private ownership in the long run.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: international comparisons of electricity regulation

Regulation, public ownership and privatisation of the English electricity industry

How should it be done? Electricity regulation in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile

From club-regulation to market competition in the Scandinavian electricity supply industry

Competition and institutional change in the US electric power regulation

The Japanese electric utility industry

Regulation of the market for electricity in the Federal Republic of Germany

The evolution of New Zealand's electricity supply structure

Regulation of electric power in Canada

The French electricity industry

The Yugoslav electric power industry

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.