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...

This paper shows that the abolition of state guarantees to publicly owned banks in Germany resulted in an increase in refinancing costs at German savings banks. Rather than being the result of increased market discipline, the increase in refinancing costs is shown to be driven by spillover...

There is an identifiable and distinct body of law and administrative regulations on state enterprise governance, anticorruption and public sector ethics emerging in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The law and administrative structures are still developing but they are sufficiently well developed to...

Critics of privatization argue that privatization encourages providers to lobby for industry expansion. I argue that this is not generally true when public-sector actors also lobby. Where the effectiveness of advocacy depends on total expenditures, some initial amount of privatization always...

A common argument against privatization is that private providers will self-interestedly lobby to increase the size of their market. In this Article, I evaluate this argument, using, as a case study, the argument against prison privatization based on the possibility that the private prison...

Advisory committees are a ubiquitous yet understudied feature of the administrative state. More than seventy-five thousand experts from outside the federal government serve on over one thousand committees across the executive branch, providing agencies with informed “second opinions” to...

We examine the use of subsidies to R&D in a mixed and a private duopoly market. We show that the socially optimal R&D subsidy is increasing in the degree of spillovers but it is lower in the private duopoly. The optimal R&D subsidy leads to an increase in total R&D and production, however, it...

Rational individuals may use a Public Service TV channel as a welfare improving institution to solve the paradox of being uninformed. To induce voters to watch unbiased serious informational content the Public Service TV channel is not only broadcasting (unbiased serious) news but also sport and...

Recent empirical studies suggest that poor public sector performance in developing nations is due in part to the difficultly of selecting workers whose motivation is aligned with the mission of the institution -- in direct contrast to evidence from developed nations, public sector workers tend...

Eine Teilnahme an der UEFA Champions League ermöglicht Vereinen, erhebliche finanzielle Zusatzeinnahmen zu generieren und ihre Kader so weiter zu verstärken. Gerade Vertreter schwächerer Bundesligaklubs beklagen sich daher über abnehmende Wettbewerbschancen und eine Schwächung der...