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
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: Suggested Citation