As “market referees”, regulators contribute to the delivery of essential public utilities. Their organisational culture, behaviour, actions and governance are important factors in how they, and the sectors they oversee, perform.

As "market referees", regulators contribute to the delivery of essential public utilities. Their organisational culture, behaviour, actions and governance are important factors in how they, and the sectors they oversee, perform. The OECD Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators (PAFER) looks at the institutions, processes and practices that can create an organisational culture of performance and results. This report uses PAFER to assess both the internal and external governance of Brazil's Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL). The review offers recommendations for the regulator to build upon its strong technical reputation and good practices. It proposes an integrated set of recommendations to help the regulator best fulfil its role as a key actor supporting sector modernisation.

As “market referees”, regulators contribute to the delivery of essential public utilities. Their organisational culture, behaviour, actions and governance are important factors in how they, and the sectors they oversee, perform. The OECD Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators (PAFER) looks at the institutions, processes and practices that can create an organisational culture of performance and results. This report uses PAFER to assess both the internal and external governance of Brazil's Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL). The review offers recommendations for the regulator to build upon its strong technical reputation and good practices. It proposes an integrated set of recommendations to help the regulator best fulfil its role as a key actor supporting sector modernisation.

This paper contributes to the literature that explores the link between regulatory governance and sector performance. The paper develops an index of regulatory governance and estimates its impact on sector performance, showing that indeed regulation and its governance matter. The authors use two unique databases: (i) the World Bank Performance Database, which contains detailed annual data for 250 private and public electricity companies in Latin America and the Caribbean; and (ii) the Electricity Regulatory Governance Database, which contains data on several aspects of the governance of electricity agencies in the region. The authors run different models to explain the impacts of change in ownership and different characteristics of the regulatory agency on the performance of the utilities. The results suggest that the mere existence of a regulatory agency, regardless of the utilities' ownership, has a significant impact on performance. Furthermore, after controlling for the existence of a regulatory agency, the ownership dummies are still significant and with the expected signs. The authors propose an experience measure in order to identify the gradual impact of the regulatory agency on utility performance. The results confirm this hypothesis. In addition, the paper explores two different measures of governance, an aggregate measure of regulatory governance, and an index based on principal components, including autonomy, transparency, and accountability. The findings show that the governance of regulatory agencies matters and has significant effects on performance.

As “market referees”, regulators contribute to the delivery of essential public utilities. Their organisational culture, behaviour, actions and governance are important factors in how they, and the sectors they oversee, perform. The OECD Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators (PAFER) looks at the institutions, processes and practices that can create an organisational culture of performance and results. This report uses PAFER to assess both the internal and external governance of Brazil’s National Agency for Water and Basic Sanitation (ANA). The review offers recommendations for the regulator to build upon its strong technical reputation and good practices. It proposes an integrated set of recommendations to help ANA best fulfil its roles relating to water resource management and water-use regulation, dam safety, and water supply and sanitation.

This book provides insights into infrastructure sector performance by focusing on the links between key indicators for utilities, and changes in ownership, regulatory agency governance, and corporate governance, among other dimensions. By linking inputs and outputs over the last 15 years, the analysis is able to uncover key determinants that have impacted performance and address why the effects of such dimensions resulted in significant changes in the performance of infrastructure service provision.

Regulators act as “market referees”, balancing often competing interests of stakeholders, including governments, current and future actors in the markets, and consumers. At the same time, markets are changing at an unprecedented pace due to new technologies, the international drive toward carbon-neutral economies, shifts in consumer needs and preferences, and, more recently, the profound changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.