How Did Privatization Affect Prices and Efficiency in Swedish Electricity Distribution Companies?

Around the turn of the millennium, a wave of privatizations in the Swedish electricity distribution sector lead to an increase in ownership concentration. In this project, Erik Lundin analyzes the performance of the acquired distribution firms to see if privately owned networks have a stronger incentive to increase prices and reduce costs than non-private ones. Results show that labor costs fell in the privatized networks, but that this reduction did not lead to a reduction in network tariffs.