Author Description

"With more than US$100 billion in private investments during the 1990s, the success of infrastructure reforms in Brazil seemed inevitable. However, the current prospects for private participation in infrastructure are far less optimistic and regulatory risk, or at least its perception among private investors, appears to have increased." "Regulatory governance, broadly understood as the conditions for the enforcement of laws and contracts by regulators, is an important component of regulatory risk. Market-friendly legislation and well-designed contracts may be innocuous if regulators are poorly equipped or face the wrong incentives for appropriate enforcement. Between 1997 and 2005, at least 28 regulatory agencies were established in Brazil, either at the federal or state level. Yet, only limited assessment of the state of regulatory governance in Brazil is available so far." "Regulatory Governance in Infrastructure Industries provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of regulatory governance in infrastructure industries in Brazil and suggests possible indicators for future monitoring. The book identifies key components of regulatory governance, namely autonomy (political and financial), procedures for decision making, "instruments" (including personnel), and accountability. It then assesses each of these components in practice, reporting the results of a survey with 21 Brazilian regulatory agencies, which was designed and implemented by the authors in 2005. Finally, the book measures regulatory governance based on three related indexes, ranks the Brazilian regulators among themselves, and compares the proposed indexes with two other indicators available in the literature." "Regulatory Governance in Infrastructure Industries will be of interest to readers in federal and state or regional governments, nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, and organizations involved in regulating infrastructure. Book jacket."--Jacket.