The political economy of international regulatory convergence in public utilities
Résumé
To what extent should public utilities regulation be expected toconverge across countries? When it occurs, will it generate good outcomes?Building on the core proposition of the New Institutional Economics thatsimilar regulations generate different outcomes depending on their fit withthe underlying domestic institutions, we develop a simple model and exploreits implications by examining the diffusion of local loop unbundling (LLU)regulations. We argue that¿ one should expect some convergence in public utility regulation but withstill a significant degree of local experimentation¿ this process will have very different impacts of regulation.