Creating incentives for private infrastructure companies to become more efficient

The privatization of infrastructure companies is expected to bring about gains for customers by increasing the efficiency of the privatized company. Because many infrastructure industries are not competitive, attention has focused on the development of regulatory regimes that replicate the operation of competitive markets and so lead to efficiency gains. Less attention, however, has been paid to other institutional factors that encourage firms to operate efficiently. The authors study three institutional factors that can, in general, encourage efficiency: the threat of bankruptcy; internal controls brought about by executive remuneration schemes and the ability of shareholders to remove underperforming management; and external disciplines brought about by the operation of the market for corporate control and the threat of hostile takeover. Applying these three aspects of corporate governance to monopolistic infrastructure firms is not simple. Infrastructure regulation may allow privatized firms to avoid financial problems by raising prices, for example, thus sheltering them from the threat of bankruptcy. And shareholder control may be hindered by restrictions on the proportion of the shares that can be owned by any one shareholder. The authors offer examples of the ways in which different regulatory, institutional, and governance systems work in different countries, especially in relation to infrastructure companies; and provide a checklist of options that should be considered when designing the involvement of the private sector in infrastructure position.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Microfinance,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Small Scale Enterprise,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Small Scale Enterprise,Microfinance,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Regulatory structure and risk and infrastructure firms : an international comparison

Evidence about how choice of regulatory regimes affects the level of shareholder risk for the regulated company has traditionally focused on studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. Broad comparisons of price-cap based regimes (as practiced in the UK) with rate-of-return regulation (as practiced in the US) show price-cap based regimes to be associated with higher levels of shareholder risk (as measured by the beta value) than rate-of-return regulation is. But so few countries were compared that it was suspected that other factors could be at work. The authors broaden the investigation by studying more countries (including regulated utilities in Canada, Europe,, and Latin America), doing a sectoral comparison to control for some risks related to factors other than the regulatory regime, and use narrower classifications for the regulatory regime. They also look at such recent evidence as the move from relatively pure price caps in the UK electricity sector to a mixed-revenue/price-cap based system. The authors find results aligned with earlier research, namely that investors bear the greatest nondiversifiable risk with price caps and the least nondiversifiable risk with rate-of-return regulation.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Financial Intermediation

Regulatory structure and risk and infrastructure firms : an international comparison

Evidence about how choice of regulatory regimes affects the level of shareholder risk for the regulated company has traditionally focused on studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. Broad comparisons of price-cap based regimes (as practiced in the UK) with rate-of-return regulation (as practiced in the US) show price-cap based regimes to be associated with higher levels of shareholder risk (as measured by the beta value) than rate-of-return regulation is. But so few countries were compared that it was suspected that other factors could be at work. The authors broaden the investigation by studying more countries (including regulated utilities in Canada, Europe,, and Latin America), doing a sectoral comparison to control for some risks related to factors other than the regulatory regime, and use narrower classifications for the regulatory regime. They also look at such recent evidence as the move from relatively pure price caps in the UK electricity sector to a mixed-revenue/price-cap based system. The authors find results aligned with earlier research, namely that investors bear the greatest nondiversifiable risk with price caps and the least nondiversifiable risk with rate-of-return regulation

Thermodynamics and kinetics of proton-coupled electron transfer: stepwise vs. concerted pathways

AbstractReactions that involve transfer of an electron and a proton can proceed by stepwise pathways involving initial electron transfer (ET) or initial proton transfer (PT), or by a concerted pathway without an intermediate. The concerted mechanism is termed proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET). Understanding such reactions requires knowledge of the thermodynamics of the possible ET, PT, and PCET steps. Many reactions have a large thermochemical bias favoring the PCET pathway. This bias is often sufficient to rule out stepwise mechanisms. The ΔG° for ET, PT, or PCET has a strong influence on the rate of that step. Using the terminology of Marcus theory, PT and PCET reactions at CH bonds have higher intrinsic barriers than such reactions at OH or NH bonds. The intrinsic barriers to ET and PCET are often similar when there is a small intrinsic barrier to PT. Reactions with a thermochemical bias toward PCET and with similar intrinsic barriers for all the pathways are most likely to occur by concerted PCET

Mapping the Developmental Trajectory and Correlates of Enhanced Pitch Perception on Speech Processing in Adults with ASD

Whilst enhanced perception has been widely reported in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), relatively little is known about the developmental trajectory and impact of atypical auditory processing on speech perception in intellectually high-functioning adults with ASD. This paper presents data on perception of complex tones and speech pitch in adult participants with high-functioning ASD and typical development, and compares these with pre-existing data using the same paradigm with groups of children and adolescents with and without ASD. As perceptual processing abnormalities are likely to influence behavioural performance, regression analyses were carried out on the adult data set. The findings revealed markedly different pitch discrimination trajectories and language correlates across diagnostic groups. While pitch discrimination increased with age and correlated with receptive vocabulary in groups without ASD, it was enhanced in childhood and stable across development in ASD. Pitch discrimination scores did not correlate with receptive vocabulary scores in the ASD group and for adults with ASD superior pitch perception was associated with sensory atypicalities and diagnostic measures of symptom severity. We conclude that the development of pitch discrimination, and its associated mechanisms markedly distinguish those with and without ASD

Do people “pop out”?

The human body is a highly familiar and socially very important object. Does this mean that the human body has a special status with respect to visual attention? In the current paper we tested whether people in natural scenes attract attention and “pop out” or, alternatively, are at least searched for more efficiently than targets of another category (machines). Observers in our study searched a visual array for dynamic or static scenes containing humans amidst scenes containing machines and vice versa. The arrays consisted of 2, 4, 6 or 8 scenes arranged in a circular array, with targets being present or absent. Search times increased with set size for dynamic and static human and machine targets, arguing against pop out. However, search for human targets was more efficient than for machine targets as indicated by shallower search slopes for human targets. Eye tracking further revealed that observers made more first fixations to human than to machine targets and that their on-target fixation durations were shorter for human compared to machine targets. In summary, our results suggest that searching for people in natural scenes is more efficient than searching for other categories even though people do not pop out.peer-reviewe

Insulin processing and action in adipocytes: evidence for generation of insulin-containing vesicles by leupeptin and monensin

AbstractIncubation of adipocytes with 125I-insulin plus leupeptin or monensin, but not chloroquine, resulted in the appearance of a novel peak of 125I-insulin (modal density about 1.20 gml) on density gradient centrifugation; the appearance of the peak depended on the presence of specific insulin receptors on the cell surface. The fractions comprising this peak contained vesicles, probably originating from the Golgi apparatus, and dit not appear to be contaminated with lysosomes, mitochondria or plasma membrane. Entrapment of insulin in these vesicles per se did not prevent the activation of glucose transport, acetyl-CoA carboxylase or pyruvate dehydrogenase by insulin