Person: Rana, Anshul
Office of the Infrastructure Chief Economist
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POWER SECTOR REFORM, INSTITUTIONAL REFORM, POLITICAL ECONOMY, STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES, REGULATION
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Office of the Infrastructure Chief Economist
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Anshul Rana is an ET Consultant in the Office of Chief Economist for the Infrastructure Vice-Presidency at the World Bank. He specializes in institutional reform in the power sector. He has also worked on the global dashboard to track progress towards SDG7 goals and on RISE, an ESMAP product used to monitor policy frameworks to support sustainable energy globally. Prior to joining the World Bank, he taught at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University focusing on the political economy of infrastructure development and energy policy in the developing world. He has also worked as a reporter for major newspapers and TV networks in the US and India. He holds a master’s in international economics from SAIS, Johns Hopkins.
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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
Publication Understanding Public Spending Trends for Infrastructure in Developing Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01) Gorgulu, Nisan; Foster, Vivien; Rana, AnshulEvidence of public expenditure on infrastructure is extremely sparse. Little is known about the trends and patterns of infrastructure expenditure, and there is no real basis for assessing the adequacy and efficiency of infrastructure spending. Drawing on the World Bank’s novel BOOST database, this paper provides a first relatively disaggregated picture of infrastructure spending trends and patterns for a large sample of more than 70 developing countries covering 2010–18, drilling down into expenditure by sector for roads as well as electricity, and distinguishing operating from capital expenditure. Complementary sources of data are tapped to allow comparison between expenditure patterns on and off budget. The study finds that on-budget expenditure on infrastructure has been low both in absolute terms (1 percent of gross domestic product) and relative terms (5 percent of total public spending), as well as declining over time. Overall, infrastructure spending declined by about one-third over 2010–18 (with the road sector bearing the brunt of the decrease), and now lies well below estimates of the required levels, except in a handful of cases. There is evidence that low-income countries, despite lower spending envelopes, attach greater priority to public investment and infrastructure spending than their middle-income counterparts. Econometric analysis suggests that infrastructure spending in low- and middle-income countries has been historically procyclical, although to a lesser degree than total expenditure. In the transport sector, road funds are shown to play a substantial role in funding road maintenance, appearing to improve the adequacy of funding, while attenuating pronounced capital biases in road sector spending, but there is little evidence of efficiency improvements over time.Publication Rethinking Power Sector Reform in the Developing World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) Foster, Vivien; Rana, AnshulA new paradigm for power sector reform emerged during the 1990s, under the influence of the Washington Consensus, and began to spread across the developing world. This approach advocated restructuring of national power utilities to create scope for competition, while delegating responsibilities to the private sector under a clear regulatory framework. After 25 years, few developing countries have managed to adopt the model in its entirety, while many others encountered political and economic challenges along the way. This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of developing country power sector reform, sifting the evidence of whether reforms have contributed to improved sector outcomes. It also examines to what extent the reform paradigm remains relevant to the new social and environmental policy agenda of the twenty-first century, and is capable of adaptation to emerging technological disruption.Publication GERI 2022: Global Electricity Regulatory Index - ESMAP Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) Ngulube, Mumba; Rana, Anshul; Foster, VivienThis report introduces the Global Electricity Regulatory Index (GERI), an index which benchmarks a country’s existing regulatory system against theoretical best practice, based on a set of standardized indicators which permit meaningful cross-country comparisons and provide the potential for progress with regulation to be tracked over time. The resulting snapshot of regulatory performance reveals that important progress has been made, but at the same time highlights many remaining significant gaps and shortcomings in the regulatory environment for the power sector in the developing world.Publication Learning from Power Sector Reform: The Case of the Arab Republic of Egypt(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-02) Khanna, Ashish; Rana, AnshulThe challenge of power sector reform in the Arab Republic of Egypt has long been dominated by extremely high subsidies, with prices set well below the costs of supply. These subsidies have taken a variety of forms: explicit subsidies in the government budget, implicit subsidies in the underpricing of fuel supply (particularly natural gas) to the power sector, accumulation of arrears from the sector, poorly-maintained physical capital, and cross-subsidies across customer classes. Egypt's social contract was linked to expanding energy access with good quality supply based on public financing and huge subsidies. Egypt has been able to achieve universal access with more or less reliable power over the entire period, except when chronic underinvestment in the sector caused blackouts in 2011–14 at time of severe political uncertainty. The social compact came under pressure in 2014 when energy subsidies reached 6.8 percent of gross domestic product. Since then, the reform process has been revived based on new electricity, gas, and renewable energy laws; price and subsidy adjustments; structural reforms with a deliberately long time frame; and greater emphasis on the role of the private sector.Publication Rethinking Power Sector Reform: Positive Lessons for the Middle East and North Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01-31) Nguyen, Tu Chi; Rana, Anshul; Fernstrom, Erik Magnus; Foster, VivienThe need for greater efficiency and accountability in the power sector in the Middle East and North Africa has renewed pressure for reforms. A major new World Bank report, Rethinking Power Sector Reform in the Developing World (Foster and Rana 2020), examines how developing countries have attempted to reform their power sector and with what results. Some key lessons point the way forward.Publication Cost Recovery and Financial Viability of the Power Sector in Developing Countries: Insights from 15 Case Studies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01) Huenteler, Joern; Hankinson, Denzel; Rosenthal, Nicole; Balabanyan, Ani; Kochnakyan, Arthur; Nguyen, Tu Chi; Rana, Anshul; Foster, VivienThis paper analyzes power utilities in 15 jurisdictions to understand the determinants of success for reforms aimed at improving financial viability and cost recovery in the power sector and the impacts of these reforms on metrics of sector performance. The analysis finds that electricity tariffs are rarely high enough to cover the full costs of service delivery, even where the cost of service is low, and that few countries adequately manage volatile costs and maintain cost recovery levels over time. Almost everywhere, power utilities often impose a substantial fiscal burden and contingent liabilities on government budgets. Over the past 30 years, cost recovery levels have increased on average, but progress has been uneven, with over half of the case study jurisdictions experiencing a decline compared with the pre-reform period. The record of reforms of price formation, especially tariff setting through regulatory agencies, is mixed. On average, countries that have made more progress on utility governance and decision making perform better on cost recovery. The paper concludes with proposed modifications to the conceptual framework underpinning the economic analysis of power sector reforms as well as immediate, practical implications for understanding cost recovery as part of the overall power sector reform agenda.