Many comparisons of the performance of public and private producers use a public/private ownership dummy varaible to capture cost differences in cross section data. This is appropriate if the producer choice is random. The dummy variable model is, however, logically inconsistent if the producer...

Privatisation has become a common governement policy in many countries. This paper summarizes the salient features of privatisations by public share float in Australia during the period 1989 to 1997. The costs associated with these privatisations is examined, including both direct costs and the...

We consider a market in which a public firm completes against private ones, and ask what happens when the public firms is privatized. In the short run, privatization is harmful because prices rise: the disciplinary role of the public firm is lost. In the long run, privatization, leads to further...

This paper, prepared by the Private Sector Development Department at the initiative of the Africa Technical Department of the World Bank, examines the promise and challenge of infrastructure privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particular emphasis on power, telecommunications, water, rail,...

Privatisation is often explained by a desire to achieve efficiency. This paper presents conditions under which political interference yields higher welfare than under commercial objectives, and vice versa. If effort affects utility, interference may be beneficial in a seemingly perfect market.

Privatization has been the basic direction of reform in transitional economies. In implementing this process, however, policy makers overlooked the problems of the remaining public enterprises, mainly public utilities and natural resource-based industries which often include declining...

This paper examined theoretically and empirically privatization episodes in a sample of Sub-Sahara African countries that were under military regimes as of 1970. The theoretical analysis employed a principal-agent model to investigate the mutually beneficial profit-sharing collaborations between...

Since the 1980s, privatization of formerly state-owned firms has been extensively implemented by governments across Latin America. Despite the fact that most evaluations of the process fail to find significant adverse efficiency and welfare effects, there has been a strong surge in public...