This paper briefly reviews some of the empirical findings of a research team of the University of Milan on privatization in different countries. The discussed effects include: effects on consumers, tax-payers, workers, shareholders; on aggregate growth, public finance, firms’ productivity,...

A wide range of services provided by the public sector are credence goods, i.e., services for which the producer has private information whether a certain treatment is needed or not. This paper studies how ownership affects the incentives for producers to reveal such information to public...

This paper deals with the transformation of theatres - allowance organisations of the City of Prague. The whole issue is placed in a wider context of economic policy. The paper aims to evaluate the transformation using the example of selected theatres that have been transformed; the analysis also...

Economic growth is below what would be needed to resume rapid convergence to average OECD living standards. On-going efforts to improve the business climate are laudable, but need to be widened and strengthened. Much progress has been achieved in reducing red tape, but it is only recently that...

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) realize three critical strategic issues for improving the quality of urban services: the enhancement of governmental financing capabilities, the improvement of public investment efficiency, and the harnessing of consumer-orientated management expertise. Based...

Using data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, we test two interesting results that emerge from the theoretical model presented in Shleifer and Vishny (1994) that studies bargaining between politicians and managers of state-owned firms. Shleifer and Vishny's model suggests that firms with...

Quangos and public entrepreneurship are closely related. The economic theory of quangos allows us to develop a quango theory and highlight the effects of public entrepreneurship. By considering principal agent relations we show how public entrepreneurship of government and quango influence each...

The central objective of the research summarized in this report was to explore the ways and means of reforming State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to achieve efficiency, profitability and accountability. Specifically, this project sought to: (i) survey international experience in SOE reform; (ii)...

Public enterprises (PEs) have played a dominant role in Tanzania's socio-economic development. However, there enterprises have contributed significantly to economic crises presently facing the country. Precisely, they have been a fiscal and monetary burden to the economy. The main objective of...