Alternating Currents or Counter-Revolution? Contemporary Electricity Reform in New Zealand

Victoria University Press, 2006

356 Pages Posted: 7 Jan 2010 Last revised: 22 Mar 2019

See all articles by Richard Meade

Richard Meade

Auckland University of Technology

Lewis T. Evans

Victoria University of Wellington - New Zealand Institute for Study of Competition and Regulation Inc. (ISCR)

Date Written: 2006

Abstract

The authors place New Zealand's current institutional arrangements for its electricity sector within the context of successive waves of economic reform. They compare these arrangements with developments internationally, drawing together lessons for future policymaking both in New Zealand and overseas. This book is a work of political economy that carefully analyses the interplay between technology, economics and politics that has at different times driven the sector. Controversially, the authors argue that the market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s provided greater supply security than the more centralised arrangements that prevailed in the past – and that New Zealand's reversion to more centralised and political control since the late 1990s has resulted in an unsustainable half-way house that hinders private electricity investment and reinforces this trend.

Keywords: New Zealand, Institutions, Electricity sector, Economic Reform, Policymaking, Political Economy

JEL Classification: L94, K23

Suggested Citation

Meade, Richard and Evans, Lewis T., Alternating Currents or Counter-Revolution? Contemporary Electricity Reform in New Zealand (2006). Victoria University Press, 2006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1532475

Richard Meade

Auckland University of Technology ( email )

AUT City Campus
Private Bag 92006
Auckland, 1142
New Zealand

HOME PAGE: http://www.aut.ac.nz/profiles/richard-meade

Lewis T. Evans (Contact Author)

Victoria University of Wellington - New Zealand Institute for Study of Competition and Regulation Inc. (ISCR) ( email )

Wellington 6001
New Zealand
64 4 4635562 (Phone)
64 4 4635566 (Fax)

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