Whose utility? : the social impact of public utility privatization and regulation in Britain / by John Ernst.

Author
Ernst, John, 1951- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Buckingham [England] ; Philadelphia : Open University Press, 1994.
Description
x, 225 pages ; 24 cm.

Details

Subject(s)
Series
Public policy and management. [More in this series]
Summary note
  • This book is the first in-depth analysis of the impact of public utility privatization on ordinary consumers. John Ernst traces the history of energy and water privatization and documents the community and consumer sectors' various attempts to influence the structure of privatization and regulation. He provides a wealth of data on the energy and water utilities over the first period of privatization and shows that the benefits and costs of privatization have not been shared equally.
  • Low income consumers have been particularly adversely affected and the regressive outcomes of privatization have undercut the gains that domestic consumers have made in some areas of service provision.
  • Concluding with an overview of the British experiment of energy and water privatization the author argues that the privatization settlements reached by successive Conservative governments with the privatized utility companies are seriously flawed, and that the British model of privatization is inappropriate to the domain of essential public utility services.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (p. [198]-220) and index.
Contents
  • 1. The process and structure of public utility privatization in Britain
  • 2. Public utilities services, public policy and regulation
  • 3. Objectives and outcomes of the privatization of public utilities
  • 4. Prices and tariff structures
  • 5. The management of debt and disconnection
  • 6. Consumer protection and representation
  • 7. Public utility privatization in perspective: policy and paradigm change.
ISBN
  • 0335192688 :
  • 033519267X (pbk.) :
LCCN
93038812
OCLC
29259347
RCP
C - S
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