Postal Services play a fundamental role in each nation, because of the double impact they generate from a social and economic point of view. The introduction of the European directives opens the way towards a larger importance of free competition. But, even if liberalisation of postal markets...

TThis paper seeks to assess the extent to which a country’s overall level of development and that of its financial sector, in particular, are factors that attract private capital into infrastructure projects. The authors investigate these effects in a 1990–2007 dataset on the power sector in...

TThis paper seeks to assess the extent to which a country’s overall level of development and that of its financial sector, in particular, are factors that attract private capital into infrastructure projects. The authors investigate these effects in a 1990–2007 dataset on the power sector in...

La existencia de empresas públicas es un fenómeno habitual y económicamente significativo en la mayoría de los países. En este trabajo se analiza la existencia de empresas estatales en la región y en Uruguay, considerándose los motivos para su creación; las propuestas de reforma surgidas...

Delegation is a key feature of political decision making: Mayors or prime ministers delegate to subordinates, voters delegate to elected representatives. We analyze the effect of political delegation on public service provision and the choice between private or public providers when contracts...

This paper analyses the effects of board composition on the behaviour and performance of a sample of 114 Italian local public utilities, for which information about 1630 directors during 1994-2004 has been collected. This period is particularly interesting because of the legal changes that...

This paper provides evidence that ownership and organization matters for the efficiency of provision of public services. In particular, we find that pure private ownership is more efficient than pure public ownership, followed by mixed ownership. The delegation of management in different legal...

A considerable share of public investment comes not only from public budgets but also from public utility companies. One major area of investment is energy and water supply, where the utility companies have substantial fixed assets in the form of distribution infrastructure. Using new microdata...

Einen beachtlichen Anteil öffentlicher Investitionen tätigen - außerhalb der öffentlichen Haushalte - kommunale Unternehmen, beispielsweise Stadtwerke. Ein bedeutender Investitionsbereich ist die Energie- und Wasserversorgung, da die Unternehmen über beträchtliche Sachanlagen in der...