Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T04:07:47.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Economy of Privatisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Bob Rowthorn  and
Ha-Joon Chang
Bob Rowthorn
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
Ha-Joon Chang
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines some of the main arguments relating to the effect of privatisation on efficiency. It is concerned with both narrow economic issues and wider political issues. After a critical examination of some theories, which assert that private ownership is intrinsically more efficient than public ownership, it is argued that for large scale enterprise there are no strong economic reasons for believing in the superiority of private enterprise. As long as the government in question has the will and the power to make a public enterprise function in a socially efficient fashion, the public enterprise may be just as efficient as private enterprise whilst offering additional economic and social advantages.

Type
Symposium: An International Perspective on Privatisation
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1992 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramovitz, M. (1986) “Catching up, forging ahead, and falling behind”, Journal of Economic History, 46, 2.Google Scholar
Alchian, A., Demsetz, H. (1972) “Production, information costs, and economic organisation”, American Economic Review, 62, 5.Google Scholar
Amsden, A. (1985) “The State and Taiwan’s Economic Development” in Evans, P., Rueschemeyer, D., Skocpol, T. (eds.), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Amsden, A. (1989) Asia’s Next Giant, New York, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ayub, M., Hegstad, S. (1986) “Public industrial enterprises”, Industry and Finance Series, vol., 17, Washington, D.C., The World Bank.Google Scholar
Chang, H., Rowthorn, B. (1992), “Public Ownership and the Theory of the State” in Clarke, T., Pitelis, C. (eds), The Political Economy of Privatisation, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chang, H., Singh, A. (1991) Public enterprises in developing countries and economic efficiency — a critical examination of analytical, empirical, and policy issue, mimeo. Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge; forthcoming as a working paper of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).Google Scholar
Cosh, A., Hughes, A., Singh, A. (1990) Takeovers, short-termism and finance-industry relations in the U.K. economy, mimeo., Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Demsetz, H. (1988) “A framework for the study of ownership”, in Demsetz, H., Ownership, Control, and the Firm, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Demsetz, H., Lehn, K. (1985) “The structure of corporate ownership: Causes and consequences”, Journal of Political Economy, 93, 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, J. (1984) Making Sense of Marx, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 January, 1992.Google Scholar
von Hayek, F. (1949) “Economics and knowledge” in Hayek, F., Individualism and Economic Order, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Helm, D., Mayer, C., Mayhew, K. (1991) “The assessment: Microeconomic policy in the 1980s”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 7, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, A. (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kaldor, N. (1980) “Public or private enterprise — the issues to be considered” in Baumol, W. (ed.), Public and Private Enterprises in a Mixed Economy, London & Basingstoke, Macmillan.Google Scholar
Khan, M. (1989) Corruption, clientelism, and capitalist development: An analysis of state intervention with special reference to Bangladesh, Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1979) “Resource-constrained versus demand-constrained systems”, Econometrica, 47, 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavoie, D. (1985) Rivalry and Central Planning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Manne, H. (1965) “Mergers and the market for corporate control”, Journal of Political Economy, 73.Google Scholar
McPherson, M. (1984) “Limits of self-seeking: The role of morality in economic life” in Colander, D. (ed.), Neoclassical Political Economy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ballinger Publishing Company.Google Scholar
von Mises, L. (1935) “Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth”, trans. Adler, S., von Hayek, F. (ed.), Collectivist Economic Planning: Critical Studies on the Possibilities of Socialism, Londo: Routledge & Sons.Google Scholar
Newbery, D. (1992) The role of public enterprises in the national economy, a paper presented at Asian Development Bank Conference.Google Scholar
Niskanen, W. (1973) Bureaucracy: Servant or Master?, London, Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990), Insitutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1982) The Rise and Decline of Nations, New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, A. (1991) Democracy and the Market — Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rowthorn, R.E. (1990) Notes on competition and public ownership, mimeo., Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. (1960) The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. (1987) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 6th edition, London, Unwin Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1983) Reason in Human Affairs, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1991) “Organisations and markets”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5, 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, A. (1971) Takeovers: Their Reference to the Stock Market and the Theory of the Firm, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Singh, A. (1975) “Takeovers, economic natural selection and the theory of the firm: Evidence from the post-war U.K. Experience”, Economic Journal, 85, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, J. (1990) Hayek and the Market, London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Vickers, J., (1990), “New Directions for Industrial Policy in the Area of Regulatory Reform”, in Thompson, G., et al (eds) Markets, Hierachies and Networks: The Coordination of Social Life, London, Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Vickers, J., Yarrow, G. (1989) Privatisation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. (1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, New York, The Free Press.Google Scholar