State-owned enterprises (SOEs) account for a substantial proportion of GDP, employment and assets in many countries. This article reviews the theory relating to SOEs: their economic rationale, the circumstances in which SOEs are the preferred form of government intervention, and their efficiency...

The paper presents comparative statics of organizational modes of natural monopoly in public utilities with a focus on co-ownership and co-governance. Private monopoly lowers output and increases price to maximize profit; public monopoly incurs higher costs due to the lack of know-how; and a...

This discussion paper revisits the issue of state-funded activism in the UK and EU. It starts with the hypothesis that there has been a decline in taxpayers’ money given to political advocacy groups because (1) budget cuts under ‘austerity’ have made less money available to...

This study examines whether a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement improved operational cost efficiency in Korea's urban rail transit system. Overall, evidence suggests that private participation has not contributed to cost reduction in service operation. The study also explains how the...

To many it seems anomalous that a communist regime like China would adopt an antitrust law. It seems even more bizarre that China would apply its antitrust provisions to regulate its state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This simplistic view, however, fails to reflect the complexity of the Chinese...

We examined the association between financial disclosure and Net Interest Costs (NIC) in terms of finance studies that have suggested that the municipal bond market is segmented. Our results indicate that financial reporting measures are more strongly associated with NIC in the regional primary...

This paper studies the price structure in a postal sector with a monopolistic operator when customers can engage in worksharing. It presents simulation results obtained from an empirical model that is calibrated on data from the French postal sector. The optimal worksharing discount is...

En este documento se analizan los esquemas público y privado del servicio domiciliario de aseo de la ciudad de Bogotá en materia de tarifas, eficiencia e impactos sociales. Además, se hacen sugerencias de política para una organización adecuada del sistema de aseo.

There is a lack of competition in the German water and sewerage sector. According to economic theory levels of service can be expected to be inefficient. I will check this hypothesis and therefore take a closer look at various categories of levels of service. In analysing the internet pages of...