Managing the Regulatory Process: Design, Concepts, Issues, and the Latin America and Caribbean Story

Over the last twenty years, while developed countries witnessed unparalleled rise in new regulations, developing countries complemented their privatization, with deregulation practices in various sectors, and devised regulatory frameworks, particularly for the utilities sectors. The study analyzes the impact of economic regulation on productivity, and, efficiency among the Latin American and Caribbean developing countries, assessing their gains from regulatory reforms. Basic choices for regulation engineering are examined, both successful contract practices, such as in Jamaica, or specific legislation in Chile, to disastrous regulation decrees in Argentina, and shows contract practices, to be the salient choice for most Latin American countries. The study reviews various practices, such as franchises and concessions, as modes of private sector participation and alternatives to regulation, analyzing the design of these arrangements for competitive marketability of their goods and services. Privatization restructuring and regulation concepts are examined, and a methodology spells out considerations for state-owned monopolies, prior to privatization. Finally, the challenge of regulation is revised, where lessons on regulatory design are examined, and an analysis on discretionary practices, re-negotiation and structural issues is presented, along with regulatory best practices.