A note on privatizations and public sector net worth: what (not) to learn from the UK experience

The paper shows that privatisation can contribute to the decrease of net public debt, but at the same time can decrease the Public Sector Net Worth. This is defined as the difference between public sector assets and liabilities. The UK in the 1980s and 1990s is an example of parallelism between divestiture and worsening of the PSNW. The paper is divided into four short sections. In the first we refer to the general concept of Public Sector Net Worth (PSNW). In the second section we present some data for the UK experience of privatization. In the third section we develop a simple conceptual model that shows which variables are at stake and how they are related. We conclude with some implications for economic policy