**Table 2: Country rankings in the ERGI and four Indexes**

||ERG|I|AUTON|OMY|TRANSPA|RENCY|ACCOUNT|ABILITY|TOO|LS|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Position|Score|Position|Score|Position|Score|Position|Score|Position|Score|
|Argentina|7|0.80|6|0.85|8|0.71|10|0.71|8|0.83|
|Barbados|8|0.76|10|0.82|8|0.71|4|0.83|10|0.59|
|Bolivia|3|0.84|**1**|**0.912**|5|0.80|3|0.84|4|0.78|
|Brazil|2|0.85|5|0.87|6|0.79|2|0.87|2|0.90|
|Chile|18|**0.56**|**19**|**0.57**|12|0.63|**16**|**0.50**|12|0.52|
|Colombia|9|0.75|18|0.67|5|0.8|6|0.79|7|0.71|
|Costa Rica|12|0.74|8|0.84|7|0.74|10|0.71|10|0.59|
|D. Republic|10|0.75|3|0.90|8|0.71|8|0.74|12|0.51|
|Ecuador|17|0.60|17|0.70|15|0.57|12|0.65|13|0.40|
|El Salvador|5|0.82|7|0.84|2|0.86|5|0.81|7|0.71|
|Guatemala|6|0.79|12|0.80|13|0.62|2|0.87|**1**|**0.93**|
|Honduras|**19**|**0.56**|16|0.70|**16**|**0.53**|14|0.54|**14**|**0.37**|
|Jamaica|15|0.72|14|0.78|10|0.68|13|0.62|3|0.86|
|Mexico|14|0.72|15|0.75|4|0.83|7|0.75|**14**|**0.37**|
|Nicaragua|11|0.74|2|0.91|11|0.66|9|0.72|9|0.63|
|Panama|16|0.63|11|0.81|14|0.59|15|0.52|11|0.54|
|Peru|4|0.83|4|0.90|3|0.85|7|0.75|3|0.86|
|T & T|**1**|**0.88**|9|0.82|**1**|**0.92**|**1**|**0.97**|5|0.76|
|Uruguay|13|0.72|13|0.80|9|0.69|11|0.67|6|0.72|

_Source:_ LAC Electricity Regulatory Governance Database. The World Bank. 2007 Six distinctive factors in autonomy explain the lower scores achieved by countries at the bottom compared to countries at the top of the ERGI: 1) the institutional status of the agency: although in all the countries regulatory agencies are a separate entity from the line ministry, agencies with low scores in autonomy lack legal independence from the government (particularly in the cases of Mexico and Chile); 2) the joint regulation of the sector between the agency and the Executive or the Congress (Chile and Mexico); 3) the limited extent of the agency’s regulatory powers (in the cases of Uruguay and Mexico, the agency lacks pricing powers and the minister approves tariffs); 4) the minister’s responsibilities in terms of the main regulatory issues (in the particular cases of Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay, the agency does not have final decision power on tariffs and companies’ investment plans); 5) the appointment of the Board of Directors by the President without the intervention of the Parliament; and 6) the level of government funds in the budget (in both Chile and Mexico the agency’s budget is composed exclusively of government funds; in Uruguay, although the electricity provider is a state-owned company, the agency charges a regulation tax to the electricity companies).

In the case of Chile, its low position in autonomy is explained not only by the regulatory power of the ministry in tariff regulation but also by the high involvement of political authorities in the agency’s decision-making. For instance, the Board of Chile’s _Comisión Nacional de Energía_ is composed of different ministries and headed by the minister of energy. Market liberalization does not explain agencies’ institutional design in this country. Despite the unbundling of the sector in 1980, the intervention of government authorities in regulatory issues is still as important as in countries that have not privatized their public companies ( _e.g._ Mexico and Uruguay). The governance design of Chile’s regulatory agencies seems to be more linked to the country’s institutional traditions than to the particular policies that shaped its electricity sector.

Accountability is the second highest variable with a regional score of 0.73. Trinidad and Tobago’s _Regulated Industries Commission_ is the agency with the highest score (0.97) and Chile (considering

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