ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the basic principles for normatively assessing WS policies (the term WS policies, here, includes the design of WS sector institutions, e.g. concerning regulation). This is done by combining a descriptive perspective-which focuses on key supply, demand, and institutional characteristics of the WS sector and their consequences for the provision of WS services-and a normative perspective-which assesses the desirability of WS policies. A descriptive analysis is a necessary fi rst step for a well-grounded normative analysis of WS policies, because assessing the desirability of WS policies implies (i) information about their effect on the given state of affairs (descriptive perspective), and (ii) value judgements about what shall be considered a problem and what a good solution (normative perspective).1
