Since an enterprise, which is to be privatized, has to be restructured in uncertainty, and the restructuring investments are sunk when the final decision on the sale price is taken, there is an imminent danger that restructuring is not efficient, and there is underinvestment. We consider,...

This paper deals with the privatization, restructuring, and liquidation of East German industrial firms. A partnership model is suggested for privatization where the Government’s property trust (Treuhandanstait (THA)) is made a silent partner of the private investors. The application of a...

Compared with the traditional public-finance approach of a monolithic fully informed planner, earmarking of taxation is less likely to be optimal if a principal-agent setting is considered, where taxing and spending are performed by two separate agents which are monitored by the parliament. We...

In public procurement a temporal separation between award and actual contract allows private entrepreneurs who did not get the award to sue to become contractor. Hence, not only the award-winning entrepreneur, but also the losers will engage in relationship-specific investments. Unfortunately,...