Learning from Power Sector Reform: The Case of The Philippines

Robert W. Bacon

No 8853, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The Philippines power sector underwent a substantial and largely complete reform process. Following a severe shortage of supply in the late 1980s and the Asian Financial crisis of 1997, which made the dollar-denominated debt of the National Power Corporation extremely burdensome, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act was passed in 2001. This was intended to improve the quality of service and reduce power tariffs via the introduction of private participation and competition at the wholesale and retail levels. Although the implementation of the full reform program took longer than originally expected, the unwavering support given to the reform agenda by successive presidents of the country ensured that the planned steps had all been completed by 2013. At that time, retail competition and open access for consumers in Luzon and Visayas of more than one megawatt were introduced. The reform process was not impeded by complications that would have arisen if consumer subsidies had been endemic, but retail prices are even higher than might have been expected in the absence of subsidies, due to domestic taxation and the presence of some inefficiencies that have not yet been eliminated by the onset of competition.

Keywords: Energy Policies&Economics; Economics and Finance of Public Institution Development; Privatization; De Facto Governments; Democratic Government; Public Sector Administrative&Civil Service Reform; State Owned Enterprise Reform; Energy Privatization; Public Sector Administrative and Civil Service Reform; Energy and Mining; Energy Demand; Energy and Environment; Energy Sector Regulation; Power&Energy Conversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/38506155 ... -The-Philippines.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8853

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().