IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v13y1999i1p67-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Efficient Mechanism for Downsizing the Public Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Jeon, Doh-Shin
  • Laffont, Jean-Jacques

Abstract

This article analyzes the efficient mechanism for downsizing the public sector, focusing on adverse selection in productive efficiency. Each worker is assumed to have two type-dependent reservation utilities: the status quo utility in the public sector before downsizing and the utility that the worker expects to obtain by entering the private sector. The efficient mechanism consists of a menu of probability (of remaining in the public sector) and transfer pairs that induces self-selection. A worker's full cost is defined by the sum of production cost in the public sector and reservation utility in the private sector. It is optimal to start by laying off the agents with higher full cost. When the public sector before downsizing is discriminating as the differential of private information about productive efficiency suggests, there are countervailing incentives. This makes the size of downsizing smaller under asymmetric information than under complete information. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeon, Doh-Shin & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1999. "The Efficient Mechanism for Downsizing the Public Sector," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 67-88, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:13:y:1999:i:1:p:67-88
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chong, Alberto & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio, 2002. "Privatization and labor force restructuring around the world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2884, The World Bank.
    2. Estache, Antonio & Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Zhang, Xinzhu, 2004. "Downsizing with labor sharing and collusion," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 519-540, April.
    3. Alberto Chong & Florencio de, 2003. "The Truth about Privatization in Latin America," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm436, Yale School of Management.
    4. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur, 2008. "Incentives and Workers' Motivation in the Public Sector," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 171-191, January.
    5. Cremer, Helmuth & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 2003. "Public goods with costly access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1985-2012, September.
    6. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2008. "Money, fame and the allocation of talent: Brain drain and the institution of science," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 558-581, June.
    7. Robert Dur & Heiner Schmittdiel, 2019. "Paid to Quit," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 387-406, December.
    8. Alberto Chong & Virgilio Galdo, 2006. "Streamlining and Privatization Prices in the Telecommunications Industry," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(291), pages 461-484, August.
    9. Milan Vodopivec, 2004. "Income Support for the Unemployed : Issues and Options," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14922, December.
    10. World Bank, 2003. "The Russian Labor Market : Moving from Crisis to Recovery," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15007, December.
    11. Heinz, Matthias & Drzensky, Frank, 2013. "The Hidden Costs of Downsizing," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79764, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Dana Foarta & Takuo Sugaya, 2021. "The management of talent: Optimal contracting for selection and incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(1), pages 49-77, March.
    13. Vodopivec, Milan & Raju, Dhushyanth, 2002. "Income support systems for the unemployed : issues and options," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 25529, The World Bank.
    14. Doh-Shin Jeon & Joel Shapiro, 2004. "Downsizing, job insecurity and firm reputation," Economics Working Papers 795, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    15. Eric Maskin, 2004. "Jean-Jacques Laffont: A Look Back," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 913-923, September.
    16. Alberto Chong & Virgilio Galdo, 2003. "La racionalización y los precios de la privatización en el sector de las telecomunicaciones," Research Department Publications 4320, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    17. repec:cuf:journl:y:2014:v:15:i:2:chong:lopez-de-silanes is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Alberto Chong & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, 2003. "La privatización y la reestructuración de la fuerza laboral en todo el mundo," Research Department Publications 4330, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:13:y:1999:i:1:p:67-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.