Thinking about Ronald Coase, economists generally refer to transaction and social costs, to the importance of property rights and institutions or to the Coase-theorem. Examine his work more closely, a common feature takes shape behind these ideas, the public utilities. The constant and detailed...

Energy industries are mainly organised at national level in Hungary, however local governments have their specific role in the system. Local governments have been major performers in the first period of the transition process: they were entitled to receive 25 per cent of the shares in electric...

Several decades of market opening has become a characteristic of network industries. Its main hindrances and aids has come into sight during this period. There is a need now to evaluate the process of market opening and to assess the steps to be taken. Market opening is usually measured by...

We provide a simple theoretical model to explain the mechanism whereby privatization of international airports can improve welfare. The model consists of a downstream (airline) duopoly with two inputs landings at two airports) and two types of consumers. The airline companies compete...

We investigate how port privatization affects port charges, firm profits, and welfare. Our model consists of an international duopoly with two ports and two markets. When the unit transport cost is large, privatization of ports decreases the prices for port usage, although neither government has...

Exploiting a unique institutional feature of the early Romanian privatization setup, when a group of firms was explicitly barred from any privatization, we test how politicians select firms into privatization programs. Using a comprehensive dataset that includes all firms inherited from...

Exploiting a unique institutional feature of the early Romanian privatization setup, when a group of firms was explicitly barred from any privatization, we test how politicians select firms into privatization. Using comprehensive data that includes all firms inherited from socialism, we estimate...

With the help of a peculiar institutional feature of early Romanian privatization, when a group of firms was explicitly banned to become private, we test which factors contributed to the selection of firms into long-term state ownership. We find that politicians sheltered large and inefficient...