Utility Reform: Regulating Quality Standards to Improve Access for the Poor
Author: Bill Baker and Sophie Tremolet Date: 10/1/2000 (PDF, 200KB)
The current wave of privatization of infrastructure services is commonly accompanied by stricter enforcement of quality standards, which pushes up costs, maintaining or worsening the exclusion of the poor. The poor could get easier access to service if the main provider was permitted to deviate from this uniform standard, offering poor consumers a service in which an acceptable relaxation in quality led to a lower price