Institutional Change in the Electricity Industry: A Comparison of Four Latin American Cases

52 Pages Posted: 22 May 2001

See all articles by Carlos R. Rufin

Carlos R. Rufin

Babson College - Management Division

Date Written: April 25, 2001

Abstract

By means of a comparison of the process of restructuring of the electricity industry in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Chile, I examine the validity of three hypotheses about the determinants of institutional change in this industry. The case studies show that ideology plays a major role in shaping the outcomes of the institutional change process; distributional conflict, or the conflict over the economic rents that can be extracted from the electricity industry, also has a significant influence on institutional change, although somewhat weaker than ideology; finally, the degree of judicial independence in a country can affect institutional transformation with regard to property rights, but not with regard to the degree of reliance on competitive mechanisms of resource allocation.

Keywords: Institutions, public enterprise, ideology, judicial independence, rent seeking, regulation, electricity

Suggested Citation

Rufin, Carlos, Institutional Change in the Electricity Industry: A Comparison of Four Latin American Cases (April 25, 2001). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=270813 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.270813

Carlos Rufin (Contact Author)

Babson College - Management Division ( email )

Babson Park, MA 02457
United States
781-239-6411 (Phone)
781-239-5272 (Fax)

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