Utilities privatization and the poor: lessons and evidence from Latin America
By Antonio Estache, A. Gómez-Lobo, Danny D. Leipziger. 2001
151 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract The perception that privatization hurts the poor is growing and creating a backlash against the private provision of basic infrastructure services. At the same time, governments are finding themselves fiscally strapped, searching for ways to finance the large investments needed to expand services to the poor. In Latin America, a laboratory for privatization, evidence exists which sheds light on the privatization experience. This paper analyzes the channels through which the poor might either lose or gain from privatization, examines the evidence accumulated on what has actually happened, and then discusses the policy options available to decision-makers who want to increase efficiency while at the same time dealing with the infrastructure needs of the poor that have been identified as being important for their welfare. In that context, the issue of whether welfare considerations should form part of the regulatory approach to privatized services is examined. The paper's major aims are to shed light on the issue of who can and does benefit from privatization of utilities, and to guide policy-makers in the choices.
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management, Urban Studies
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bd1f1fb7112dc059376bda716e9415c866b835a0
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Citations in the corpus
- Water for Life: The Impact of the Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality (2004, unknown): “There is typically little competition to a well-functioning water system from alternative sources (Estache et al. 2001).”
- Payments for environmental services as neoliberal market-based forest conservation in Vietnam: Panacea or problem? (2012, background): “Negative outcomes of this process in the literature have included decreased access and quality of water after privatization of provision (McDonald and Ruiters, 2005), uneven land reform that has favored the wealthy and led to increased deforestation and degradation in some areas (Borras, 2003; Futem”