IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v5y1991i2p111-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic Perspectives on Privatization

Author

Listed:
  • John Vickers
  • George Yarrow

Abstract

Despite being one of the most fundamental issues in political economy, the question of the appropriate boundary between public and private enterprise received relatively little attention in mainstream economic analysis until quite recently. In the 1980s, however, programs of ownership reform were started in many developed and developing countries. Dramatic though some of these policies have been, they are likely to be overshadowed in the 1990s by even greater privatization in the reforming socialist economies. The opening sections of this paper are organized around three broad and interrelated questions. How does ownership matter for the efficiency of enterprise performance? What is the role for privatization in financing public debts and deficits? What are the distributional and political implications of privatization? Finally we examine privatization in practice in three countries: Britain, Chile, and Poland.

Suggested Citation

  • John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:5:y:1991:i:2:p:111-32
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.5.2.111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.5.2.111
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Oliver D. Hart, 1983. "The Market Mechanism as an Incentive Scheme," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 366-382, Autumn.
    3. Boardman, Anthony E & Vining, Aidan R, 1989. "Ownership and Performance in Competitive Environments: A Comparison of the Performance of Private, Mixed, and State-Owned Enterprises," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-33, April.
    4. Richard A. Posner, 1971. "Taxation by Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 22-50, Spring.
    5. Richard Molyneux & David Thompson, 1987. "Nationalised industry performance: still third-rate?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 8(1), pages 48-82, February.
    6. David E. M. Sappington & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1987. "Privatization, information and incentives," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 567-585.
    7. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    8. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1988. "Privatization: An Economic Analysis," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262720116, February.
    9. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R, 1980. "The Relative Efficiency of Public and Private Firms in a Competitive Environment: The Case of Canadian Railroads," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 958-976, October.
    10. Barry J. Nalebuff & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1983. "Prices and Incentives: Towards a General Theory of Compensation and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 21-43, Spring.
    11. Yarrow, George, 1989. "Privatization and economic performance in Britain," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 303-344, January.
    12. Bruce C. Greenwald, 1984. "Rate Base Selection and the Structure of Regulation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 85-95, Spring.
    13. Oliver E. Williamson, 1976. "Franchise Bidding for Natural Monopolies -- in General and with Respect to CATV," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(1), pages 73-104, Spring.
    14. Shapiro, C. & Willing, D.R., 1990. "Economic Rationales For The Scope Of Privatization," Papers 41, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Discussion Paper.
    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. Christian Wolf & Michael G. Pollitt, 2008. "Privatising national oil companies: Assessing the impact on firm performance," Working Papers EPRG 0805, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    2. Willner, Johan & Parker, David, 2002. "The Relative Performance of Public and Private Enterprise Under Conditions of Active and Passive Ownership," Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) Working papers 30591, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    3. Warren Moskowitz & Stephen Yeaple, 1995. "The literature on privatization," Research Paper 9514, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Villalonga, Belen, 2000. "Privatization and efficiency: differentiating ownership effects from political, organizational, and dynamic effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 43-74, May.
    5. Wolf, Christian, 2009. "Does ownership matter? The performance and efficiency of State Oil vs. Private Oil (1987-2006)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2642-2652, July.
    6. Meenakshi Parida & S. Madheswaran, 2021. "Effect of firm ownership on productivity: empirical evidence from the Indian mining industry," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 34(1), pages 87-103, April.
    7. Giovanni Fraquelli, 1998. "Before and after privatization: a comparison between competitive firms," CERIS Working Paper 199802, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    8. Parida, Meenakshi & Madheswaran, S., 2021. "Does ownership matter? Empirical evidence from the performance of Indian state and private coal mining companies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Gong, Stephen X.H. & Cullinane, Kevin & Firth, Michael, 2012. "The impact of airport and seaport privatization on efficiency and performance: A review of the international evidence and implications for developing countries," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 37-47.
    10. Alberto Cavaliere & Simona Scabrosetti, 2008. "Privatization And Efficiency: From Principals And Agents To Political Economy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 685-710, September.
    11. Dyck, I. J. Alexander & Wruck, Karen Hopper, 1998. "Organization structure, contract design and government ownership: A clinical analysis of German privatization1," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 265-299, September.
    12. Hite, James C., 1993. "Rural Development, Privatization And Public Choice: Substance Depends Upon Process," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-10, July.
    13. Hyvärinen, Jari, 2004. "EU Outsourcing to the East, Governance and Innovation Systems in the Baltic Countries - A Three-Stage Approach," Discussion Papers 934, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    14. Adler, Nicole & Liebert, Vanessa, 2014. "Joint impact of competition, ownership form and economic regulation on airport performance and pricing," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 92-109.
    15. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    16. Nandini Gupta, 2001. "Partial Privatization and Firm Performance: Evidence from India," Industrial Organization 0112002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. repec:idb:brikps:268 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Zhang, Le-Yin, 2004. "The Roles of Corporatization and Stock Market Listing in Reforming China's State Industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2031-2047, December.
    19. Shirley, Mary M., 1999. "Bureaucrats in business: The roles of privatization versus corporatization in state-owned enterprise reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 115-136, January.
    20. Saul Estrin, 2020. "Towards A Framework To Understand The Relative Performance Of State-Owned Firms," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 65(225), pages 11-32, April – J.
    21. Estrin, Saul, 2020. "Towards a framework to understand the relative performance of state-owned firms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109830, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:aea:jecper:v:5:y:1991:i:2:p:111-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.