Paul Seidenstat is Associate Professor of Economics at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. He is a specialist in public finance, public management and water resources. He is a co-author of Reinventing Water and Wastewater Systems: Global Lessons for Improving Management (John Wiley and Sons, 2002), and America’s Water and Wastewater Industries: Competition and Privatization (Public Utilities Reports, Inc., 2000). Dr Seidenstat has also co-edited five other books on the use of economic incentives to improve the provision of public services. He has conducted several research projects for US federal government agencies and served in local government as a finance director and financial advisor.