The Effect of Gasoline Taxes and Public Transit Investments on Driving Patterns

This paper analyzes how driving patterns are affected by gasoline taxes and the availability of a substitute for driving—public transportation. We develop a measure of transportation substitutability based on the difference between individuals’ predicted commute times by private and public transit, conditional upon their demographic characteristics and geographic location. Improved substitutability decreases annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by inducing modal shifts to public transit, though gasoline taxes are found to have a much larger impact on VMT. Our results imply that a policy that raises gasoline taxes and recycles the revenues into public transit improvements can have even larger impacts on driving patterns than either policy alone.     

An Agency Perspective on the Costs and Benefits of Privatization

This paper proposes a unified theoretical framework to discuss the costs and benefits of privatization using the recent advances of Incentive Theory. I begin by presenting a simple model in which the State (the principal) delegates a task (e.g., the production of a public good) to the private sector (the agent). I give and discuss conditions for the “Irrelevance Theorem” due to Sappington and Stiglitz [Sappington, D., & Stiglitz, J. (1987) Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 6, 567–582] to hold under complete contracting. I then show how various contract incompletenesses can make either public or private ownership optimal. Finally, I provide critical assessments of these results. I thank Patrick Rey and Wilfried Zantman for useful comments on an earlier draft. The excellent comments of two referees have also improved substantially the presentation and organization of the paper. I am deeply indebted to Denis Gromb for his extremely detailed comments.     

城市公用事业民营化改革的复杂性研究

我国城市公用事业民营化改革处于初始阶段且有加速推行的迹象,但改革的微观模式尚没有厘清。从理论上看,城市公用事业民营化在技术不变的情况下,无论禀赋是否增加,均非帕累托改善。从实际上看,城市公用事业民营化也会产生诸多的政策困境,且有两难的特点,其中包括民营化与固定回报;价格调整与普遍服务;特许经营中的垄断与竞争;市场准入门槛的高与低等一系列操作性难题。加之,民营化易引发的腐败和失业等负面效应。因此,必须建立符合我国国情的城市公用事业民营化改革模式。     

公用事业民营化改革中的政府责任

一、公用事业民营化改革的背景 自19世纪70年代以来,全世界范围内掀起了汹涌澎湃的行政改革浪潮。当代行政改革是在世纪之交和时代转型的环境下推行的。改革既是对数十年来行政管理实践的检讨和反思过程,同时也是对新时代、新环境的自觉适应过程。全球范围致力于传统行政模式向新行政模式的转换,使得当代行政改革具有划时代的重要意义。     

公用事业民营化与政府规制

本文以H市Y区管道燃气民营化为个案,分析了我国公用事业民营化过程中政府规制的需要。通过分析表明,公用事业民营化并不意味着不需要政府规制,而是要根据公用事业的自然垄断特性,调整政府规制的范围和内容。并且,政府规制框架的确立应该尽可能先于公用事业民营化的实践。这对处于起步阶段的我国公用事业民营化将有所裨益。     

Public Enterprise Privatization: A General Equilibrium Analysis

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to examine the short‐run and long‐run optimal privatization policies. By assuming that all firms are public firms initially, the paper focuses on how the degree of product differentiation γ and the average efficiency of the industry influence the determination of the optimal privatization policy. The paper shows that privatization decreases the more efficient firms' outputs while increases the less efficient firms' outputs in the short run, and reduces all firms' outputs in the long run. The paper also shows that the larger is γ and the smaller is the number of firms, the more privatized will be the public firm in the short run. Moreover, as γ or the entry barrier f_E is sufficiently small, full privatization is the best policy in the long run. On the contrary, as γ and f_E are large enough, partial privatization is optimal.     

转换成本四维度对顾客保留影响的实证研究

在关系营销时代,消费者与企业之间的关系维持成为业界和学术界关注的焦点。根据转换成本相关理论,企业可以通过合理设置各种障碍来防止顾客流失,从而达到保留顾客的目的。本文在梳理文献的基础上,将转换成本划分为四维度,分别是进入程序转换成本、退出程序转换成本、社会转换成本和利益损失成本。由于忠诚的顾客不一定是有价值的顾客,所以,用顾客保留替代顾客忠诚,将其作为研究转换成本对维持现有顾客影响的最终落脚点。实证研究发现,利益损失成本对顾客满意有最强正向影响,只有进入程序转换成本对顾客信任有直接影响,只有社会转换成本对顾客保留有直接影响等。为此,企业可以通过合理设置转换成本来提高顾客满意及保留顾客。     

Privatization Policies and Public Enterprise: A Survey*

This paper surveys and analyzes the economic literature on ‘privatization’ policies, restricting coverage to policies designed to improve the operating efficiency of public sector enterprises through increased exposure to competitive market forces. These include asset sales, liberalization (or deregulation) and franchising. The objectives, incentives and constraints of public and private enterprises are examined, and evidence on their comparative performance is analyzed. Public sector revenue effects from asset sale are also explored. On the basis of these considerations, the paper concludes that liberalization is an important ingredient in any policy package designed to improve the operating efficiency of public sector enterprises. Asset sale may enhance the beneficial impact of deregulation but asset sale in the absence of deregulation is unlikely to improve efficiency, and may introduce additional market distortions. Franchising is seen as an appropriate mechanism for privatization when the market is inherently monopolistic and when the government desires to retain control over output and/or price.     

利益博弈缺失与公用事业民营化的限度

本文从利益集团角度分析了公用事业民营化的合意性问题.在规制政策的制定过程中,消费者集团是一个缺少政治影响力的利益群体,它与企业之间的利益博弈是缺失的,因而政府的决策通常倾向于照顾企业的利益.当公用事业由国有企业经营时,产权的公共性使得政府能在一定程度上关注公共目标,政策的扭曲不至于太严重;而当公用事业由民营企业经营时,政府对公共目标的顾虑就可以减少,政策的扭曲就会更加严重.因此,民营化将造成企业的垄断力量受到政府纵容的危险.     

Privatization And Poverty: The Distributional Impact of Utility Privatization

This article examines the effects on poverty of privatization, an impact to which donors have given little attention in their concern with efficiency and markets. The analysis of the distributional impact of privatization activities draws on empirical cases in the utilities sector in a wide range of developing economies, principally in Africa and Latin America. After a critical consideration of the World Bank position on privatization strategies, and the arguments presented by donors on the pro–poor effects of these economic reforms, the article turns to the negative distributional effects. It is argued that privatization has demonstrably damaged the poor, whether through loss of employment and income, or through exclusion from, or reduced access to, basic services. This is mainly because private firms are principally concerned with profits, prices and costs, and are highly selective as to sectors and types of consumer. Meanwhile, the weakness of governance and regulatory capacity in many developing countries lead to poor control of market abuses. The article concludes by proposing that donors should take more account of local variations in state–market relations, and be prepared to give consideration to alternative economic strategies where privatization is not working as intended.     

Public Hospital Costs in Two Australian States

This study examines the long-run and short-run behaviour of public hospital average costs in two Australian States: Victoria and Queensland. Using adjusted weighted inlier-equivalent separations as a measure of hospital output, and floor area as a measure of capacity, the study finds a hump- or '∩'-shaped long-run average cost curve at the 5 per cent significance level in both data sets. The study also finds a saucer- or '∪'-shaped relationship between capacity utilisation and short-run average cost at the 5 per cent level.     

Privatization Neutrality Theorem: When a Public Firm Pursues General Objectives

This paper examines the privatization neutrality theorem when a public firm pursues general objectives other than welfare maximization. This theorem states that when the government gives firms optimal subsidies, welfare is exactly the same before and after privatization. However, we present a seemingly paradoxical result. When a public firm incorrectly assumes that subsidies change the welfare size, privatization is necessarily welfare neutral, whereas when the public firm correctly recognizes that subsidies only bring about income redistribution, without affecting welfare, the situations in which neutrality holds are limited.     

公用事业民营化改革:理论基础与政策选择

公用事业的民营化改革是中国经济发展与改革的必然趋势。本文论述了公用事业民营化的理论基础，分析了民营化改革是公用事业治理方式变革的一种方式；实证描述了中国公用事业民营化的体制背景和基本形式，分析了中国公用事业民营化改革存在的主要问题，并研究设计了公用事业民营化过程中的政府规制政策。     

The Contribution of Privatization to Welfare

The primary focus of this work is on the nature of the privatization debate rather than on an attempt to explore the truth or validity of each of the many claims and counterclaims that have been made for the practice of privatization. The main objective is to discover why the issues remain controversial and whether there are prospects for reconciliation. The results obtained from the evidence examined suggest there is no well-formed theory of privatization, and no well-formed opposing theory. In the absence of a convincing theory, the authors conclude they expect the debate to continue on the lines of competition, free markets and choice versus complaints about unfulfilled promises and unexpected costs, corruption scandals and disadvantages to the poor, and suggest possible ways forward.

公共产品供给主体及边界确定的交易费用经济学分析——兼论我国公共产品供给过程中交易费用的计量

将新制度经济学中交易费用理论引入公共产品供给分析,给出了供给公共产品的主体确定的理论模型,并在威廉姆森范式扩展的基础上得出了各个主体的边界,认为最优公共产品供给方式的选择和主体边界的确定,取决于公共产品供给过程中发生的交易费用.测算了中国公私部门供给公共产品过程中存在的交易费用,发现就我国公共产品的供给而言,在一定的条件下将公共产品供给由政府部门交给私人部门与第三部门可以节约交易费用,提高公共产品供给的效率.     

中国轨道交通的公共政策构建

本文在梳理我国轨道交通公共政策的基础上,分析轨道交通公共政策存在的问题,认为目前轨道交通公共政策只具有行业管理性的特点,缺乏公共政策应具有的公共性、系统性与阶段性等特点,在此基础上,探讨了我国轨道交通公共政策中的一些关键性问题,如实施目标、重点与对象、政府管理及政府与企业的关系,等等.     

The Costs of Cooperation

Public goods production is not necessarily desirable and involves higher costs than is often recognized. Specifically, public goods production may require that a small minority of individuals can collude at the expense of others or impose strategic sanctions on non-contributors. These facilities may have negative as well as positive effects. The same conditions that support public goods production also support business cartels and racial discrimination, for instance. We examine the implications of this perspective for modern debates on economic policy, civic virtue, communitarianism, and libertarianism.     

供水服务民营化改革的经济分析

在世界范围内的民营化浪潮中,长期作为公用事业的供水服务也出现民营化趋势,并在很多国家取得成功实践。产权、竞争和规制的共同作用才能保证供水服务民营化改革取得良好绩效。为解决中国供水部门的低效和融资瓶颈,也必须加快供水服务的民营化进程。