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Urban Development, Public Utilities, Desarrollo urbano, Servicios públicos domiciliarios, Desenvolvimento Urbano, Public utilities, and Economic infrastructure

This paper focuses on public utilities (telecommunications, electricity, gas, water, transportation (roads, railways, buses, ports, airports), and postal service, which are sometimes referred to as economic infrastructures. The paper summarizes the desirable departures from the practices of developed countries that are called for the specificities in less developed essentially on the basis of normative economic theory. The paper provides a useful framework for those who have the difficult task of advising these countries in the implementation of more efficient ways to provide public services.
The Infrastructure and Financial Market Division has developed the program Competition Policy in Infrastructure Sectors, consisting in identifying competition problem in infrastructure sectors and the legal and structural reasons that may provoke them. This program also includes the analysis and discussion of competition regulations appropriate to promote competition in infrastructure services in developing countries. This article is part of the set of publications included in this program. This paper summarizes the desirable departures from the practices of developed countries that are called for the specificities in less developed essentially on the basis of normative economic theory. The paper provides a useful framework for those who have the difficult task of advising these countries in the implementation of more efficient ways to provide public services. Nevertheless, as the paper points out that more empirical work is needed to characterize more precisely the specific features of less developed countries that are relevant for regulatory economics. Such a work should naturally lead to distinguish various stages of development and to obtain a classification of countries calling for differentiated policies. To obtain a hard copy of this publication, please contact us at: IFM Publications Infrastructure and Financial Markets Division Inter-American Development Bank Mail Stop W-0508 1300 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20577 E-mail: sds/ifm@iadb.org Fax: 202-623-2157