Privatised transport Infrastructure and Incentives to Invest
The paper examines arguments which suggest that the investment plans of the UK’s nationalised industries before the end of the 1970s were inadequately constrained by the control mechanisms then in place but the newly privatised utilities subject to price cap regulation have inadequate incentives to invest. Comparison of the likely social costs of underinvestment and overinvestment suggest that the former will generally be higher under existing regulatory mechanisms. The paper concludes by suggesting solutions to the dilemma posed.