IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wfo/wquart/y2011i4p244-255.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Privatisation of Public Assets as an Economic Policy Instrument: Private versus Public Ownership of Companies – Empirical Evidence and Considerations for Industrial Location Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Böheim

    (WIFO)

Abstract

This second contribution to WIFO's series of articles on privatisation focuses on the analysis of the empirical evidence. It also investigates which extent of government withdrawal from state-owned enterprises would be optimal from the perspective of industrial location policy. According to the international empirical evidence private ownership is generally the more efficient and more profitable form of ownership by economic standards. Only in narrowly defined exceptions, if functioning competition cannot be achieved via the respective regulation as, e.g., in the case of services of general interest, a permanent strategic investment by the government as core shareholder is justified from an economic perspective.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Böheim, 2011. "The Privatisation of Public Assets as an Economic Policy Instrument: Private versus Public Ownership of Companies – Empirical Evidence and Considerations for Industrial Location Policy," Austrian Economic Quarterly, WIFO, vol. 16(4), pages 244-255, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wfo:wquart:y:2011:i:4:p:244-255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wifo.ac.at/wwa/pubid/43472
    File Function: abstract
    Download Restriction: Payment required
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kole, Stacey R & Mulherin, J Harold, 1997. "The Government as a Shareholder: A Case from the United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 1-22, April.
    2. Wallsten, Scott, 2005. "Returning to Victorian Competition, Ownership, and Regulation: An Empirical Study of European Telecommunications at the Turn of the Twentieth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 693-722, September.
    3. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Government Ownership of Banks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 265-301, February.
    4. Megginson, William Leon, 2005. "The Financial Economics of Privatization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195150629.
    5. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    6. Vining, Aidan R & Boardman, Anthony E, 1992. "Ownership versus Competition: Efficiency in Public Enterprise," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 205-239, March.
    7. Norbert Knoll, 2004. "International orientierte Unternehmen in Österreich. Rahmenbedingungen für Steuerungsfunktionen und Forschungskompetenz," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 25272, February.
    8. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2001. "Partial Privatization and Incomplete Contracts: The Proper Scope of Government Reconsidered," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 57(4), pages 394-411, August.
    9. Susanne Sieber, 2008. "Österreichs Attraktivität für ausländische Direktinvestitionen sowie als Standort für Headquarters Funktionen," FIW Research Reports series I-021, FIW.
    10. Ros, Agustin J, 1999. "Does Ownership or Competition Matter? The Effects of Telecommunications Reform on Network Expansion and Efficiency," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 65-92, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Megginson, William L., 2005. "The economics of bank privatization," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8-9), pages 1931-1980, August.
    2. Michael Böheim, 2011. "Die Privatisierung öffentlichen Eigentums als Instrument der Wirtschaftspolitik: Privat- versus Staatseigentum an Unternehmen – empirische Evidenz und standortpolitische Überlegungen," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 84(10), pages 675-686, October.
    3. Li, Larry & McMurray, Adela & Sy, Malick & Xue, Jinjun, 2018. "Corporate ownership, efficiency and performance under state capitalism: Evidence from China," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 747-766.
    4. Bram De Lange & Bruno Merlevede, 2020. "State-Owned Enterprises across Europe: Stylized Facts from a Large Firm-level Dataset," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 20/1006, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    5. Saul Estrin & Jan Hanousek & Evzen Kocenda & Jan Svejnar, 2009. "The Effects of Privatization and Ownership in Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 699-728, September.
    6. Cull, Robert & Spreng, Connor P., 2011. "Pursuing efficiency while maintaining outreach: Bank privatization in Tanzania," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 254-261, March.
    7. Germa Bel, 2009. "From Public to Private: Privatization in 1920's Fascist Italy," RSCAS Working Papers 2009/46, European University Institute.
    8. Mathur, Ike & Banchuenvijit, Wanrapee, 2007. "The effects of privatization on the performance of newly privatized firms in emerging markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 134-146, May.
    9. Sun, Qian & Tong, Wilson H. S., 2003. "China share issue privatization: the extent of its success," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 183-222, November.
    10. Alberto Chong & Florencio de, 2003. "The Truth about Privatization in Latin America," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm436, Yale School of Management.
    11. Clarke, George R.G. & Cull, Robert & Shirley, Mary M., 2005. "Bank privatization in developing countries: A summary of lessons and findings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8-9), pages 1905-1930, August.
    12. Mohammed Omran, 2008. "The Performance of State-Owned Enterprises and Newly Privatized Firms: Does Privatization Really Matter?," Chapters, in: José María Fanelli & Lyn Squire (ed.), Economic Reform in Developing Countries, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Stan du Plessis, 2011. "Nationalising South African mines: Back to a prosperous future, or down a rabbit hole?," Working Papers 17/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    14. Yan Li & Catherine Waddams Price, 2012. "Effect of Regulatory Reform on the Efficiency of Mobile Telecommunications," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2012-01, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Michael Böheim, 2011. "Die Privatisierung öffentlichen Eigentums als Instrument der Wirtschaftspolitik: Privat- versus Staatseigentum an Unternehmen – theoretische Grundlagen," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 84(9), pages 593-604, September.
    16. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    17. Jiang, Kun & Wang, Susheng, 2017. "A contractual analysis of state versus private ownership," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 142-168.
    18. Chi, Wei & Wang, Yijiang, 2009. "Ownership, performance and executive turnover in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 465-478, September.
    19. Holland, Kateryna, 2019. "Government investment in publicly traded firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 319-342.
    20. Marwan Mohamed Abdeldayem & Saeed Hameed AL Dulaimi, 2019. "Privatisation as a Worldwide Tool of Economic Reform: A Literature Review," International Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(2), pages 66-84, June.

    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:wfo:wquart:y:2011:i:4:p:244-255. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Florian Mayr (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wifooat.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.