In this book, the author argues that private ownership is more efficient than public ownership. He presents three major theories that support private enterprise: the property rights theory, the public choice theory, and the Austrial school. Their advantages and drawbacks are examined in theoretical terms and are supported by the evidence of working examples. From this, conclusions are drawn about privatization and the validity of the considered theories.
The real effective exchange rate (REER) is the most commonly used measure for assessing international competitiveness. We develop a methodology to estimate the REER that incorporates two distinctive elements that are not considered in the current literature and apply it to the Mediterranean Quartet (MQ) of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, whose common pattern of real appreciation has created concern in policy and academic circles. The two elements that we add to the existing literature are (i) product heterogeneity when identifying each country's international competitors and their weights and (ii) a comprehensive treatment of services exports. Our refined measure suggests a modest reduction in the observed REER gap between the MQ countries and the other euro area countries. In particular, considering product heterogeneity and services exports implies a lower real appreciation from 1998 to 2006 on the order of 2-3 percent for all MQ countries. These are difference-in-difference estimates relative to the results obtained for the rest of the euro area countries using the same methodology.
Disappointment with insider trading in Russia, with voucher privatization in the Czech Republic, and with the privatization of infrastructure in many developing countries in many developing countries has spawned new critiques of privatization. How do theory and empirical evidence answer the much-debated questions, which is more important to performance, competition or private ownership? Are state enterprises more subject to welfare-reducing interventions by government than private firms are? Do state enterprises suffer more from problems of corporate governance?
Americans choose from a dizzying array of schools, loosely categorized as "public" and "private." How did these distinctions emerge, and what do they tell us about the relationship in the United States between public authority and private enterprise? Challenged by the rise of Catholic and other parochial schools in the nineteenth century, states sought to protect the public school monopoly through regulation. Ultimately, however, Robert N. Gross shows how the public policies that resulted produced a stable educational marketplace, where choice flourished.
Public enterprises remain the most dominant medium of service provision in both developing and developed countries. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the outcry about poor performance of public enterprises was overwhelming. Nobody at that time and even now has managed to design a ‘blue print’ solution. And yet, the fact that service provision through public enterprises is here to stay is the blunt truth. In Making Public Enterprises Work - From Despair to Promise: A Turn Around Account, Dr. William Muhairwe, the Managing Director of National Water and Sewerage Corporation of Uganda, discusses the approaches used to turnaround an under-performing state enterprise into a remarkable success story. Drawing on decades of experience, taming ‘struggling’ institutions, Dr. Muhairwe enumerates practical steps taken to make a significant difference in service delivery, for the benefit of any form of enterprise. Combined with facts, simplicity and fun, this book presents a unique account of methods used for constructive engagement and dialogue with donors, government officials, workers, suppliers and, indeed, the public/customers. All chapters are interspersed with tested lessons that any enterprise can benchmark to address its service delivery challenges. It is a great handbook for those involved in re-engineering their businesses. Making Public Enterprises Work contains unique home-grown turnaround reform steps that can help to revamp under-performing enterprises. It is the first book to demonstrate that performance contracts combined with incentives can work wonders in public enterprises. The book discusses how incentive rewards can spread to all levels of staff and encourage wholesome teamwork. It also looks at how enterprises can work without industrial unrest in very difficult conditions. In addition the book demonstrates how public enterprises that have been listed for privatisation can provide alternative restructuring steps. Click here to read and share material related to this title on the IWA WaterWiki.
Private, public, and global enterprises represent different types of business ownership structures and operational scopes. Here's a breakdown of each: Private Enterprises: Ownership: Private enterprises are owned and operated by individuals, families, or groups of investors. Ownership is typically limited to a few individuals or a single entity. Governance: Decision-making is usually centralized, with owners or a board of directors making key strategic choices. Funding: Private enterprises often rely on personal savings, loans, or investments from private individuals or venture capitalists for funding. Examples: Small businesses, family-owned companies, startups, and many corporations fall into this category. Public Enterprises: Ownership: Public enterprises are owned and operated by the government at either the national, regional, or local level. However, they can still have private shareholders. Governance: Decision-making may involve government officials, a board of directors, or a combination of both. They're subject to governmental regulations and oversight. Funding: Public enterprises can receive funding from government budgets, taxes, bonds, or even revenue from their operations. They may also can issue shares on the stock market. Examples: Public utilities (such as water and electricity providers), nationalized industries (like postal services or railways), and some healthcare and education institutions can be publicly owned and operated. Global Enterprises: Scope: Global enterprises operate across national boundaries, engaging in business activities in multiple countries. They have a presence in various markets around the world. Ownership: Global enterprises can be either private or public. They may be multinational corporations with subsidiaries in different countries. Governance: Governance structures vary, but they often involve complex organizational hierarchies to manage operations in diverse locations. Funding: Funding sources can include revenue from operations, loans, investments, and sometimes government incentives or subsidies. Examples: Many of the world's largest companies, such as Google, Apple, and ExxonMobil, are global enterprises with operations spanning multiple countries and continents. Each type of enterprise has its advantages and challenges, and the choice between them often depends on factors like ownership preferences, funding availability, regulatory environment, and the strategic goals of the organization.
The book is divided into three major sections. The first presents a theoretical discussion that underlies the other essays. The second section deals with privatization issues from the perspective of the United States. The third describes research addressed to the U. K. and Canada. In the first chapter, Richard Zeckbauser and Murray Horn develop a wide-ranging theoretical framework for assessing the capabilities and role of state-owned enterprises; it provides a foundation for the analyses that follow. In The Control and Perfonnance o[ State-Owned Enterprises , they describe state-owned enterprises as an extreme case of the separation of ownership and control. The focus is on management --the incentives it faces and the conflicts to which it is subjected. The distinguishing characteristics of public enterprise, the authors suggest, give it a comparative advantage over both public bureaucracy and private enterprise in certain situations. They argue that legislators are more likely to prefer SOEs over private enterprise when the efficiency of private enterprise is undermined by regulation or the tbreat of opportunistic state action, when the informational demands of subsidizing private production to meet distributional objectives are high, when it is difficult to assign property rights, or when state ownership is ideologically appealing. These considerations suggest why SOEs are usually assigned special rights and responsibilities, and they help explain observed regularities in the distribution of SOEs across countries and sectors. Zeckhauser and Horn apply principal-agent theory to identify the key factors underlying the performance of state-owned enterprises.
