The electricity supply industry: a study of an industry in transition

In 1989 the UK began a process of transferring an almost wholly state-owned electricity supply industry (ESI) into a collection of privately-owned generation, transmission and distribution utilities. Using data from 1960-97, this paper aims to evaluate how the performance of the UK ESI has changed over time and to compare the UK performance with France, Germany and the United States in order to assess the impact of the liberalisation process. The study takes a whole-industry approach, combining the four aspects of electricity production - generation, transmission, distribution and supply. The computation of labour and total factor productivity and the impact on consumer prices are used to shed light on how successful the various industry structures have been in raising performance.