It is believed that privatizations substantially contributed to boost stock markets through the 1980s and 1990s. However, trough which channels did that materialize? We test whether privatizations -improving households' acquaintance with the risk and return characteristics of stocks through the...

We survey the theoretical literature on privatization and efficiency by tracing its evolution from the applications of agency theory to recent contributions in the field of political economy. The first ones extend the theory of regulation with incomplete information to address privatization...