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This report assesses the potential of electricity contract auctions as a procurement option for the World Bank's client countries. It focuses on the role of auctions of electricity contracts designed to expand and retain existing generation capacity. It is not meant to be a 'how-to' manual. Rather, it highlights some major issues and options that need to be taken into account when a country considers moving towards competitive electricity procurement through the introduction of electricity auctions. Auctions have played an important role in the effort to match supply and demand. Ever since the 1990s, the use of long-term contract auctions to procure new generation capacity, notably from private sector suppliers, has garnered increased affection from investors, governments, and multilateral agencies in general, as a means to achieve a competitive and transparent procurement process while providing certainty of supply for the medium to long term. However, the liberalization of electricity markets and the move from single-buyer procurement models increased the nature of the challenge facing system planners in their efforts to ensure an adequate and secure supply of electricity in the future at the best price. While auctions as general propositions are a means to match supply with demand in a cost-effective manner, they can also be and have been used to meet a variety of goals.

The research presented in this volume explains how well-educated workers can interact with physical capital inputs to innovate and add value to processes, products and services, ultimately creating a multiplier-effect on macroeconomic growth. It fills a significant gap in the existing literature by providing a detailed map of the relationship between microeconomic inputs such as health and education services and macroeconomic outputs such as growth. Grounded in economic theory and backed by economic analysis, Knowledge and Innovation for Competitiveness makes a compelling argument that human capital is one of the main keys to growth in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy. The volume goes on to detail specific steps authorities can take to better prepare citizens and workers to innovate and compete. Using Brazil as a case study, it explains why some policies are effective, or ineffective, in training citizens and workers to adapt and apply new technologies in a fast-changing global economic environment. Starting with pre-school and extending through university and the workplace, Knowledge and Innovation for Competitiveness argues that it is possible to foster or frustrate competitiveness at any stage. As such, it should serve as an important sourcebook of pro-growth policy recommendations for authorities, both inside and outside Brazil.