The Sources of Public Ownership : Historical Evidence from the Gas Industry

I develop and test three theories of public ownership: a small markets hypothesis; a commitment hypothesis; and a patronage hypothesis. The empirical analysis employs a cross section of 1,274 public and private gas companies operating in 1911. With these data, I find the following patterns: gas companies located in small towns were more likely to have been municipally owned than those in large towns; gas companies regulated by city councils were more likely to have been municipally owned than companies that were unregulated; and gas companies regulated by state commissions were less likely to have been municipally owned than companies that were unregulated. Placed in their historical context, these results support the small markets and property rights interpretations of public ownership