Price Control Regulation of Privatized Utilities in the United Kingdom: What Lessons for the Developing Asian Nations

Abstract

Privatization of public utilities in the United Kingdom has been the key vehicle for attaining further improvement in living standards since the mid-1980s. The United Kingdom was the first of the developed nations to privatize public utilities in 1984 when it sold British Telecom (BT). In subsequent years, almost all developed and developing nations followed suit. Simultaneously, the UK's privatization initiatives established independent regulatory agencies to oversee the performance of the newly privatized natural monopolies to protect all the parties (consumers, operators and government) from any adverse consequences of privatization. Most importantly, the regulators oversee and manage the affects of privatization on price increases. This paper investigates the price control regulation of privatized utilities in the UK with a view to gaining further lessons from these experiences for the developing Asian nations where privatization of utilities is currently being seriously considered for adoption. The lessons are investigated from the economic viewpoints.