institutions which address equity concerns beyond the efficiency objectives of power sector reforms. Lastly, regulation and governance in the sector consistently lag behind technological innovations. Clean energy goals press the need and opportunity to rethink actors’ roles in sector reforms. This includes not just government and the private sector, but also civil society, which is instrumental in the ‘social contracts’ necessary to keep governments and utilities accountable to all policy objectives.

**The weight of evidence suggests that prescriptions as specific and contingent as the 1990s power sector reform model cannot have global application.** Model market reforms entail significant political costs and risks, which in many circumstances have exceeded the benefits as perceived by influential local actors. At a higher level, it is possible to imagine some common principles for power sector institutions, as a complement to the common objectives of SDG 7. For example, one such principle may be to ensure broad concurrence on sector objectives among key government, private sector and civil society actors, before and during reform design and implementation. Such principles, like the SDGs, would still involve implicit tensions between government and market roles that cannot be resolved simply with a universal fix. At country levels, policy makers and reform champions must therefore continuously assess and adapt measures to manage risks in line with local circumstances, notwithstanding opportunities to learn from other countries’ experiences and to innovate.

**There are several important areas for future work to address key gaps in the available literature.** The literature reviewed does not provide definitive answers to all the questions asked in this paper. Important areas meriting further research include the following.<sup>70</sup>

1. _Scope of reform._ The literature lacks systematic analysis on the political economy of power sector reform in at least four areas, which interrelate.

- a. _Reform motives and outcomes_ . Most literature focus on reform processes. More work is needed to understand and distinguish the motives for reform from factors that enable or constrain the process and outcomes.

- b. _Actors._ There is insufficient attention to the role of actors and their perceptions of reforms, including in the context of changing circumstances such as crises. We also need to better understand what methods are effective for inclusion, engagement and building consensus with citizens, reformers, development partners, and other stakeholders.

- c. _Costs, benefits, and risks._ On the process of reforms, an area that merits further research is to more systematically identify and assess the costs, benefits, and risks of specific reform elements, including how they vary based on structural factors.

- d. _Private agenda._ Another area would be to distinguish between corruption and other forms of rent-seeking and political interference, to understand more finely how different types of private agenda affect reforms.

2. _Method._ The predominant focus of statistical analyses on reform processes is in part due to limitations of methodology. Furthermore, many statistical studies’ findings appear to conflict with others, and to be inconsistent with respect to different elements of model reforms, or to different groups of countries. For example, on motives, mixed findings include correlations of: reform with ideology in high- but not lower-income countries; trade competition with establishment of

> 70 See also “Power Dynamics” (2018) for a proposed research agenda on the political economy of the power sector.

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