In this paper we study the interaction between privatization and competition (liberalization) in the market. privatization is understood as a change in the objective of the owners of the firm. A public firm maximizes social welfare and a private firm maximizes profits. We find that this diference in objectives matters less the greater the level of competition because then the behavior of a welfare maximizing firm converges to the behavior of a profit maximizing firm. This result implies that privatization works better the greater the competition. On the other hand, the revenues obtained from privatization are decreasing with the level of competition. This implies that privatization aimed to raise revenues impose a cost in terms of allocative eficiency.
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Paper provided by Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie) in its series Working Papers. Serie AD with number
1999-13.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Chaim Fershtman & Kenneth L Judd, 1984.
"Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly,"
Discussion Papers
642, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
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