ABSTRACT
The overwhelming event in the political economy of the 1980s has been the worldwide revolt against the central control and regulation of economic activity by governments. Neither national boundaries nor particular political systems have escaped these forces as both democratic and totalitarian regimes have succumbed intellectually to classical liberal concepts of economic organization based on decentralization. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the following background statement of the report of the task force on electric power privatization appointed by one of the first of the twentieth century's democratic socialist governments—New Zealand.
This review of the electricity industry is part of a wide-ranging re-orientation of industry policies within New Zealand. While the details of deregulation vary considerably from industry to industry, the key broad objective is to maximize national income by encouraging greater efficiency in resource use. This objective is being pursued through a much greater reliance on market incentives, and a re-defining of the role of Government to that of establishing a legal framework within which individual and commercial decision making can take place, determining welfare transfers, and, where necessary, arranging the provision of public goods
