Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However,...

The rise and fall of public enterprise: the framework / Pier Angelo Toninelli -- The decline of state-owned enterprise and the new foundations of the state-industry relationship / Nicola Bellini -- The performance of state-owned enterprises / Yair Aharoni -- The role of the state in economic...