We present a model where a government chooses the number of individuals to which ownership in a former state-owned firm shall be allocated. When making this decision the government maximizes the political support it gets from the firm's incumbent manager and from potential shareholders,...

The paper offers a selective survey on the incomplete contracts approach to privatization. Furthermore, a simple model of privatization to an owner-manager is developed in which different allocations of ownership rights lead to different allocations of inside information about the firm which in...