How does the Ownership of Electricity Distribution relate to Energy Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean ?

This paper analyses the links between the ownership choices (i.e. public versus private) made by Latin and Central American countries for their electricity utilities and related basic social indicators at the expenditure quintile level (i.e. household access to electricity and energy poverty/affordability). From a multinomial logit model accounting for a wide range of controls, we find that energy poverty/affordability issues are more likely in countries with public operators but that these countries are also more likely to have better access rates. We also find that the creation of a separate regulatory agency is associated with better social outcomes when the operator is private than when it is public. These results have various interpretations, ranging from the illustration that better matching of ownership with other reforms is needed to get better social outcomes, to the possibility that the data reflects the effects of cream skimming by private operators preferring countries with lower poverty issues, leaving the socially challenging countries to public providers.