IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5747.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governance in state-owned enterprises revisited : the cases of water and electricity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author

Listed:
  • Andres, Luis Alberto
  • Guasch, Jose Luis
  • Azumendi, Sebastian Lopez

Abstract

This paper studies the governance structure of state-owned enterprises in the water and electricity sectors of Latin America and the Caribbean. Through a unique dataset, the paper compares 44 leading state companies of the region based on an aggregate measure of corporate governance and six salient aspects of their design: board, chief executive officer, performance orientation, management, legal framework, and transparency/disclosure. The results indicate the need for improvement in areas such as the selection and appointment of directors to the board and the performance-orientation of the enterprises. The paper also highlights the importance of discussing the management of state-owned enterprises in the wider context of public sector governance, with particular focus on accountability. Moreover, it recognizes the role of accountability as central in the management of state-owned enterprises, recommending a better understanding of regulation and performance management. The paper finds a positive correlation between corporate governance and the utilities'performance. Among the different aspects of corporate governance, performance orientation and professional management seem to be the highest contributors to well-performing state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises in the electricity sector show higher governance levels than those in the water sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Andres, Luis Alberto & Guasch, Jose Luis & Azumendi, Sebastian Lopez, 2011. "Governance in state-owned enterprises revisited : the cases of water and electricity in Latin America and the Caribbean," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5747, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/08/01/000158349_20110801150940/Rendered/PDF/WPS5747.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shirley, Mary M & Xu, Lixin Colin, 1998. "Information, Incentives, and Commitment: An Empirical Analysis of Contracts between Government and State Enterprises," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 358-378, October.
    2. Nellis, John R., 1988. "Contract plans and public enterprise performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 118, The World Bank.
    3. Andres, Luis & Guasch, Jose Luis & Diop, Makhtar & Azumendi, Sebastian Lopez, 2007. "Assessing the governance of electricity regulatory agencies in the Latin American and the Caribbean region : a benchmarking analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4380, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lisa Bagnoli & Salvador Bertomeu & Antonio Estache & Maria Vagliasindi, 2020. "Are the Poor Better Off with Public or Private Utilities ?A Survey of the Academic Evidence on Developing Economies," Working Papers ECARES 2020-24, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ajay Chhibber & Swati Gupta, 2017. "Public Sector Undertakings: Bharat’s other Ratnas," Working Papers 2017-6, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    2. Pradeep Kautish, 2010. "Study On Impact Of Environmental Change On Selected Public Sector Enterprises In India," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 5(2), pages 68-88, June.
    3. Megginson, William Leon, 2005. "The Financial Economics of Privatization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195150629.
    4. Luis Andres & José Luis Guasch & Sebastián Lopez Azumendi, 2009. "Regulatory Governance and Sector Performance: Methodology and Evaluation for Electricity Distribution in Latin America," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard & Michel Ghertman (ed.), Regulation, Deregulation, Reregulation, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Liam Wren-Lewis, 2015. "Do Infrastructure Reforms Reduce the Effect of Corruption? Theory and Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 353-384.
    6. Sanhua Sheng & Hua Li & Weijun He & Thomas Stephen Ramsey & Liang Yuan, 2023. "The effect of property rights and staff structure on the labor productivity, evidence of university spin-offs in Hubei Province, China," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 14(5), pages 1855-1865, October.
    7. Sergei Guriev & William Megginson, 2006. "Privatization: What We have Learned," Post-Print hal-03459145, HAL.
    8. Sangeetha Gunasekar & Jayati Sarkar, 2014. "Does autonomy matter in state owned enterprises? Evidence from performance contracts in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2014-034, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1quv2b21ai9o7p6v4ihttv00hu is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Dhanji, Farid & Milanovic, Branko, 1991. "Privatization in Eastern and Central Europe : objectives, constraints, and models of divestiture," Policy Research Working Paper Series 770, The World Bank.
    11. Recanatini, Francesca & Wallsten, Scott J. & Lixin Colin Xu, 2000. "Surveying surveys and questioning questions - learning from World Bank experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2307, The World Bank.
    12. Clarke, George R.G. & Cull, Robert, 2005. "Bank privatization in Argentina: A model of political constraints and differential outcomes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 133-155, October.
    13. Khaleghian, Peyvand & Gupta, Monica Das, 2005. "Public management and the essential public health functions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1083-1099, July.
    14. Chhibber, Ajay, 2021. "India's Interventionist State: Reduce Its Scope and Increase Its Capability," MPRA Paper 105711, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Feb 2021.
    15. Sumon Kumar Bhaumik & Saul Estrin & Tomasz Mickiewicz, 2017. "Ownership identity, strategy and performance: Business group affiliates versus independent firms in India," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 281-311, June.
    16. Clarke, George R.G. & Cull, Robert & Shirley, Mary M., 2005. "Bank privatization in developing countries: A summary of lessons and findings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8-9), pages 1905-1930, August.
    17. Gassner, Katharina & Pushak, Nataliya, 2014. "30 years of British utility regulation: Developing country experience and outlook," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 44-51.
    18. Serebrisky, Tomás & López Azumendi, Sebastián & Alberto Andrés, Luis, 2011. "Institutional design and governance of airport regulators: The case of Latin America," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 207-210.
    19. Clarke, George R. G. & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2004. "Privatization, competition, and corruption: how characteristics of bribe takers and payers affect bribes to utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2067-2097, August.
    20. Galal,Ahmed, 1990. "Public enterprise reform : a challenge for the World Bank," Policy Research Working Paper Series 407, The World Bank.
    21. Jan, Stephen, 2003. "A perspective on the analysis of credible commitment and myopia in health sector decision making," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 269-278, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    National Governance; Corporate Law; Private Participation in Infrastructure; Governance Indicators; Banks&Banking Reform;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5747. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.