This study surveys the academic and professional literature examining the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with a focus on empirical studies. Privatisation has been instrumental in reducing state ownership in many countries and had a transforming effect on global stock markets,...

I develop a model of public sector contracting based on the multitask framework by Holmström and Milgrom (1991). In this model, an agent can put effort into increasing the quality of a service or reducing costs. Being residual claimants, private owners have stronger incentives to cut costs than...

Fierce debate is ongoing in China concerning the appropriate role for the private sector in the current stage of reform and enterprise restructuring. There are many economists, both within China and without, who argue that China should now increase both the scale and pace of privatisation and...

We study firms' adoption of flexible versus dedicated technologies in the context of a mixed versus a private duopoly with product differentiation. The flexible technology allows a firm to become multiproduct or multimarket without bearing additional costs. We find that a configuration where...

The function of communal water supply utilities is to provide consumers with high quality drinking water in sufficient quantities. On the other hand communal wastewater disposal utilities have to dispose the wastewater. In addition to this water prices and wastewater charges shall also give...

The Mexican Ethanol Project has the potential of power up rural economy, improve the environment quality, and substitute the non-renewable fossil energy resources. But the risk of not achieving these is latent: the market distorts that it could unleash can change the expected outcomes. Public...

The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception, the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they...

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have proven to be excellent instruments for promoting a wide range of causes. But they need to adhere to strict ethical principles, that they usually embody in voluntary codes and standards. This paper analyzes one standard, the “Ethics. NGO management...