{"slug": "renationalising-british-utilities", "title": "Renationalising British utilities", "summary": "Against renationalising British utilities despite acknowledging mixed privatization outcomes and data showing state-owned utilities can be as efficient as private ones. They contend that massive restructuring to transform utilities into AI companies requires capital and pay scales that the public sector cannot easily provide, making renationalisation a mistake.", "body_md": "# Renationalising British utilities\n\nThere is talk of this with the pending change in PM, but I would not do it. I am quite aware that a) not all of the privatisations went well, and b) American data indicate that state-owned utilities do not seem very economically different than, or less efficient than, privately-owned utilities. Especially for water, where the natural monopoly elements are especially strong.\n\nNonetheless massive restructuring will be needed to make all of these companies, no matter who owns them, “AI companies.” That will require capital raises and pay scales that will be difficult for the public sector to pull off. So right now renationalisation would be a mistake.\n\nMost generally, I would say the returns to resource mobility will be rising significantly.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/renationalising-british-utilities", "canonical_source": "https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/06/renationalising-british-utilities.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=renationalising-british-utilities", "published_at": "2026-06-28 04:47:14+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-28 05:09:33.988825+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/renationalising-british-utilities", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/renationalising-british-utilities.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/renationalising-british-utilities.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/renationalising-british-utilities.jsonld"}}