Public versus Private Ownership : The Current State of the Debate

Shirley, Mary ; Walsh, Patrick

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    BANKRUPTCY;    BARRIERS TO ENTRY;    BIDDING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2420
RP-ID  :  WPS2420

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

At the heart of the debate about publicversus private ownership lie three questions: 1) Doescompetition matter more than ownership? 2) Are stateenterprises more subject to welfare-reducing interventionsby government than private firms are? 3) Do stateenterprises suffer more from governance problems thanprivate firms do? Even if the answers to these questionsfavor private ownership, the question must still be asked:Do distortions in the process of privatization mean thatprivatized firms perform worse than state enterprises? Theauthor's review found greater ambiguity about themerits of privatization and private ownership in thetheoretical literature than in the empirical literature. Inmost cases, empirical research strongly favors privateownership in competitive markets over a state-ownedcounterfactual (although construction of the counterfactualis itself a problem). Theory's ambiguity aboutownership in monopoly markets seems better justified. Sincethe choice confronting governments is between stateownership and privatization rather than betweenprivatization and optimality, theory has left a gap thatempirical work has tried to fill. Further research is needed.