Platt’s Global Power Report says today that a report issued this week by McKinsey & Co. estimates that the cost of splitting the state-owned Israel Electric Corp. into separate generation and distribution companies would not result in lower consumer prices.

This conflicts, they say, with a report that KPMG prepared for the Finance Minestry recently that supported privatization and restructuring to foster competition.

I don’t know, but I would give 10-to-1 odds that the KPMG study was supported by World Bank (or USAID) and that the McKinsey report was not.

May be no Christmas this year for those eyeing the privatization in Israel. Oops - I suppose there’s no Christmas any year in Israel, but you know what I mean.

Update: Anyway, you won’t find the answer in a study … prepared by experts.