Unionized Mixed Oligopoly and Privatization with Excess Burden of Taxation

By introducing the excess burden of taxation into unionized mixed and privatized oligopolies, we show that (i) if the government that maximizes social welfare values with a small weight of excess burden of taxation, privatization matters regardless of the number of firms; however, (ii) when the degree of excess burden of taxation lies within a relatively large range, the results of both desirable privatization and nationalization materialize depending on the critical value of the excess burden of taxation. In contrast to the existing works on mixed oligopoly, we find privatization can enhance social welfare regardless of the number of firms, under mild conditions.