A Review of the Characteristics and Challenges of Electricity Distribution in Ghana: Case Study of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company

This paper presents a review of the characteristics and challenges of electricity distribution in Ghana with an emphasis on the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) in the northern half of Ghana. NEDCo is used as a case study due to the peculiarity of its geographical area of operation and customer characteristics which better highlights the challenges of electricity distribution in Ghana. NEDCo’s electricity distribution operations cover approximately 64% of the total landmass of Ghana and contain the most deprived communities and consumers, who are extensively dispersed. In addition to the scattered settlements, NEDCo has a predominantly lifeline customer base that pay tariffs below the average cost of service. These peculiarities, together with regulatory complexities, have contributed to many challenges, such as high system losses, high cost of service and poor network reliability, in the electricity distribution sector in Ghana.

Does reputation of sponsors matter in IPO?Evidence from Hong Kong

Contrary to other markets where underwriters perform a combined role of underwriting and sponsoring in an Initial Public Offering(IPO),IPO issuers in Hong Kong must appoint at least one sponsor in addition to the underwriters.The spitting of the single role of underwriters into two separate ones offers an ideal setting to disentangle the effects of the two roles and to examine which of the two roles-sponsor or underwriter--is more important in explaining IPO underpricing and initial volatility in the Hong Kong equity market.Interestingly,our findings provide supportive evidence that the sponsor reputation does matter in an IPO and it is even more significant than the underwriter reputation in explaining the IPO underpricing phenomenon.Given the recent high-tech fervor,our research goes deeper to examine specifically the role of sponsors on high-tech firms,with results indicating that the reliance on sponsors is higher for traditional isuers than for technology firms.We further discover that sponsors and underwriters are playing substitution roles rather than complementary roles.In order to examine the regulatory policy impact,our research also compares the role of IPO sponsors before and after the launch of the new sponsor regulatory regime in 2013.The empirical findings lend support to our argument that after the launch of the new regulations,public awareness of sponsors is raised,respect towards more reputable sponsor increases,and thus,the role of sponsors becomes more impotant than before.

Liberalization and Reregulation in a Globalized Economy

Building a regulatory regime over its industry challenges the Chinese state in the process of moving towards a modem economy. To what extent has the socialist state intervention in markets been altered along with China＇s integration into the global economy？ Roselyn Hsueh examines China＇s regulatory regime of FDI through the comparison of two industries, telecommunication and textiles and finds an interesting mode of global economic integration that distinguishes China from both the liberal economic model and the East Asian developmental state model. The conclusion is that, even though China has introduced commitments made to the WTO and has liberalized FDI, it only appears to be a more liberal state in that the government has ＂selectively imposed new regulations at the sectoral level, asserting and even tightening control over industry and market development.＂ She further explores the political implication of this bifurcated strategy--＂liberal- ization two-step＂--and argues that introduction of economic competition and tol- erance of private economies and market ideas and norms do not necessarily lead to political change towards a democratic one.