IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/econpa/v29y2010i1p13-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bad Politics Makes Bad Policy: The Case of Queensland’s Asset Sales Programme

Author

Listed:
  • John Quiggin

Abstract

On 2 June 2009, the Queensland Government announced a programme of asset sales projected to realise $15 billion. In this article, the public case for privatisation put forward by the Queensland Government is shown to be wrong and, in important respects, deliberately misleading. It is argued that the presentation of a spurious case for privatisation has contributed to poor policy decisions regarding the choice of assets to be sold, the failure to restructure the rail industry to promote competition, and the adoption of inferior methods for sale.

Suggested Citation

  • John Quiggin, 2010. "Bad Politics Makes Bad Policy: The Case of Queensland’s Asset Sales Programme," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 29(1), pages 13-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econpa:v:29:y:2010:i:1:p:13-22
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1759-3441.2010.00056.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1759-3441.2010.00056.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1759-3441.2010.00056.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. Simon Grant & John Quiggin, 2003. "Public Investment and the Risk Premium for Equity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 70(277), pages 1-18, February.
    3. Simon Grant & John Quiggin, 2006. "The Risk Premium For Equity: Implications For Resource Allocation, Welfare And Policy," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 253-268, September.
    4. John Quiggin, 1995. "Does Privatisation Pay?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 28(2), pages 23-42, April.
    5. Stephen King & Rohan Pitchford, 1998. "Privatisation in Australia: Understanding the Incentives in Public and Private Firms," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 31(4), pages 313-328, December.
    6. Ross Guest, 2010. "The Proposed Privatisation of Queensland Motorways," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 29(1), pages 23-33, March.
    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. John Quiggin, 2004. "Looking Back on Microeconomic Reform: A Sceptical Viewpoint," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 15(1), pages 1-25, June.
    2. John Quiggin, 2004. "Risk, PPPs AND THE Public Sector Comparator," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 14(33), pages 51-61, July.
    3. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Equity Puzzles," MPRA Paper 68729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Zimper, Alexander, 2012. "Asset pricing in a Lucas fruit-tree economy with the best and worst in mind," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 610-628.
    5. John Quiggin, 2009. "Six Refuted Doctrines," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 28(3), pages 239-248, September.
    6. Scott French, 2014. "Innovation, Product-Cycle Trade, and the Cross-Country Distribution of Income," Discussion Papers 2014-26, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    7. Neville Hathaway, 1997. "Privatisation and the Government Cost of Capital," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 4(2), pages 155-164.
    8. Grant, S. & Quiggin, J., 2001. "Noise Trader Risk and the Political Economy of Privatization," Discussion Paper 2001-104, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    9. John Quiggin, 2002. "The Fiscal Impact of the Privatisation of the Victorian Electricity Industry," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 13(2), pages 326-339, December.
    10. Grant, Simon & Quiggin, John, 2003. "The Risk Premium for Equity: Implicatiosn for Resource Allocation, Welfare adn Policy," Working Papers 2003-14, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    11. Michael O'Donnell & Miriam Glennie & Peter O'Keefe & Seung-Ho Kwon, 2011. "Privatisation and ‘Light-Handed’ Regulation: Sydney Airport," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 65-80, May.
    12. Grant Simon & Quiggin John, 2005. "What Does the Equity Premium Mean?," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 1-7, September.
    13. Vance Martin & G.C. Lim & Esfandiar Maasoumi, 2004. "Discounting The Equity Premium Puzzle," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 331, Econometric Society.
    14. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2016. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Asset-Return Puzzles," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 229607, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    15. Mark A. Moore & Anthony E. Boardman & Aidan R. Vining & David L. Weimer & David H. Greenberg, 2004. "“Just give me a number!” Practical values for the social discount rate," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 789-812.
    16. Hultkrantz, Lars & A. Krüger, Niclas & Mantalos, Panagiotis, 2014. "Risk-adjusted long-term social rates of discount for transportation infrastructure investment," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 70-81.
    17. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring Heuristic and the Equity Premium Puzzle," MPRA Paper 68537, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Simon Grant & John Quiggin, 2002. "The Risk Premium for Equity: Implications for the Proposed Diversification of the Social Security Fund," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1104-1115, September.
    19. John Quiggin, 2001. "Market-Oriented Reform in the Australian Electricity Industry," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 12(1), pages 126-150, June.
    20. Kim, Sei-Wan & Krausz, Joshua & Nam, Kiseok, 2013. "Revisiting asset pricing under habit formation in an overlapping-generations economy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 132-138.

    More about this item

    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:bla:econpa:v:29:y:2010:i:1:p:13-22. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.