Infrastructure Regulation: What Works, Why and How Do We Know? Lessons from Asia and Beyond

Regulation of public infrastructure has been a topic of interest for more than a century. Providing public goods, securing their financing, maintenance, and improving the efficiency of their delivery, has generated a voluminous literature and series of debates. More recently, these issues have again become a central concern, as new public management approaches have transformed the role of the state in the provision of public goods and the modalities by which the financing of infrastructure and its operation are procured. Yet, despite the proliferation of new modalities of regulating infrastructure little is known about what works and why. Why do certain regulatory regimes fail and others succeed? What regulatory designs and institutional features produce optimal outcomes and how? And why do regulatory forms of governance when transplanted into different institutional contexts produce less than uniform outcomes? This book addresses these questions, exploring the theoretical foundations of regulation as well as a series of case studies drawn from the telecommunications, electricity, and water sectors. It brings together distinguished scholars and expert practitioners to explore the practical problems of regulation, regulatory design, infrastructure operation, and the implications for infrastructure provision. Contents:Regulating Infrastructure: A Review of the Issues, Problems, and Challenges (Ed Araral, Darryl S L Jarvis, M Ramesh & Wu Xun)Problems, Issues, and Perspectives in Regulation, Regulatory Design and Outcomes:Infrastructure Regulation: What Works, Why, and How do we Know? (Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes, Marcos Fernández-Gutiérrez and Julio Revuelta)Does Political Accountability Matter for Infrastructure Regulation?: The Case of Telecommunications (Farid Gasmi, Paul Noumba & Laura Recuero Virto)Entry Relaxation and an Independent Regulator: Performance Impact on the Mobile Telecoms Industry in Asia (Chalita Srinuan, Pratompong Srinuan & Erik Bohlin)Electricity Sector Regulation & Governance:Risk, Regulation and Governance: Institutional Processes and Regulatory Risk in the Thai Energy Sector (Darryl S L Jarvis)Electricity Tariff Regulation in Thailand: Analyses and Applications of Incentive Regulation (Puree Sirasoontorn)Regulating Power without a Five Year Plan: Institutional Changes in the Chinese Power Sector (Kun-Chin Lin, Mika Purra & Hui Lin)The Indonesian Electricity Sector: Institutional Transition, Regulatory Capacity and Outcomes (Mika Purra)Regulating the Independent Power Producers: A Comparative Analysis of Performance of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu in India (Rajendra Kumar)Partial Privatization and Nested Regulation: Institutional Choices in Public Sector and Regulatory Reform (Sunil Tankha)The Electricity Industry Reform in Korea: Lessons for Further Liberalization (Junki Kim & Kyuhyun Kim)Water Sector Regulation & Goverance:Regulatory Independence and Contract Incompleteness: Assessing Regulatory Effectiveness in Water Privatization in Manila (Xun Wu, Loit Batac & Nepomuceno A Malaluan)Can Regulation Improve the Performance of Government-Controlled Water Utilities? (David Ehrhardt & Nils Janson)Effects of Regulatory Quality and Political Institutions on Access to Water and Sanitation (Andrew B Whitford, Helen Smith & Anant Mandawat)The Regulation of Water Infrastructure in Italy: Origins and Effects of an ‘Hybrid’ Regulatory System (Alberto Asquer)Measuring Effectiveness of Regulation Across a River System: A Welfare Approach (Alex Coram & Lyle Noakes)Private Sector Participation and Regulatory Reform in Water Supply: The Southern Mediterranean Experience (Edouard Perard)Tempered Responsiveness through Regulatory Negotiations in the Water Sector: Managing Unanticipated Innovations Emerging from Participation Reforms (Boyd Fuller & Sunil Tankha) Readership: Students and academics studying and teaching urban and infrastructure policy; public policy professionals and policy makers. Keywords:Infrastructure;Regulation;Asia;Electricity;Water;Public Policy;Economic ReformKey Features:Brings together established and emerging experts on infrastructure regulationsContains comparative case studies from Asia and other parts of the worldCovers a wide range of key infrastructure industries like telecommunications, power, and water