A theory of public enterprise behavior

Unresolved conflict among competing goals induces factions external to public enterprices to intervene in enterprise management, thereby reducing the level of effort expended by managers. Yet intervention can be a rational mechanism for inhibiting managers from capturing the enterprises for their own ends. A formal model explores the equilibrium that results from the interactions between the maximizing decisions of managers and of controllers. The model is extended to analyze strategic buffering by managers and to identify alternative dynamic sequences that might characterize manager-controller interactions. It provides a basis for discussing policy options for controlling public enterprises.     

Privatization when the public firm is as efficient as private firms

The literature on mixed oligopoly shows that when production costs are quadratic the public firm is privatized if the competition in the product market is high enough. Similarly, when the public firm is less efficient than private firms and the marginal costs of production are constant, the government privatizes the public firm if its efficiency is low enough. In this paper we analyze this issue assuming that the public firm maximizes the weighted sum of consumer surplus, private profit and the profit of the public firm. If all firms have the same marginal cost of production we obtain that for some value of parameters the government does not privatize the public firm regardless of how many private firms are competing in the product market. We also obtain that the consumer surplus can be lower in the mixed oligopoly than in the private oligopoly.     

Nonprofits and public good provision: A contest based on compromises

Two competing nonprofits with ideologically distinct missions compete for donor funding to provide an indivisible public good in a population with heterogeneous preferences. This paper examines the extent to which (average) public values are undermined and nonprofits’ ideology compromised in a contractual game in which the right to provide the public good is the outcome of competition between nonprofits. We also scrutinize the roles of (i) cooperative versus competitive contracting, (ii) multiple public goods, (iii) enforceability of actions and (iv) observability of nonprofit costs in determining the equilibrium terms of the contract. In each case, the intensity of the ideological divide between the donor and the nonprofits jointly impact the degree to which compromises are made in terms of both the public's and nonprofit's missions, and the ability on the part of the donor to reap double (cost-saving and strategic) financial gains.     

Infrastructure privatization and changes in corruption patterns: The roots of public discontent

This paper offers a theory of how the degree of corruption that prevails in a society responds to changes in the ownership structure of major public service providers. We show that there are cases in which privatization, even though it fosters investments in infrastructure, also opens the door to more corruption. The public dissatisfaction towards privatization is then crucially affected by the changes in the degree and pattern of corruption. Our model thus helps understand the seemingly paradoxical situation prevailing in Latin America, where most studies find that privatizations have been efficiency-enhancing and have fostered investments and, at the same time, popular dissatisfaction with the process is extremely high, especially among the middle class. We show that this line of explanation is consistent with the evidence from surveys in the region.     

Structural change in Finnish manufacturing: The theory of the aggregation of production functions and an empirical analysis with a plant-level panel

In this paper, structural change in the Finnish manufacturing industries is studied using the theory of the aggregation of production functions and longitudinal plant-level data for the period from 1980 to 2005. To characterise the nature of structural change in 12 industries, we examine the invariance of aggregate production functions over time. Aggregate production functions need not be estimated because, according to the theory of the aggregation of production functions, the invariance can be analysed by investigating the stability of capacity density functions, which describe the distribution of value added in these industries. Even though the shapes of aggregate production functions alter over time in most industries, there are differences in timing and in the degree of turbulence across industries. The analysis confirms that in some industries (e.g., the paper industry) the late 1980s marked the beginning of a period of relatively strong structural change. The food and communications equipment manufacturing industries are examples of industries for which the 1990s was a period of turbulence.     

Privatisation of utilities and the asset value problem

Privatised utilities are typically characterised by both undervaluation and underpricing. When faced with this problem, regulators have tended to employ a market-value approach to determine the regulatory asset base. This paper analyses this approach and shows that it magnifies the impact of any ‘short-lived’ error at privatisation and has the effect of entrenching relative errors forever. We then address the question whether there is an alternative mechanism that can accommodate the undervaluation problem but does not fall foul of the difficulties inherent in the market-value approach. The alternative we suggest is to use the regulatory agency's own estimate of the company's value, which we call the model-based asset value. It is shown that errors made at the time of privatisation do not have the same impact on future prices, and hence far less effect on the potential sale price.     

马克思企业理论和新制度经济学企业理论的比较

本文从企业的产生、企业的边界、企业的内部控制,以及分配三个方面对马克思主义经济学和新制度经济学的企业理论进行比较。马克思主义经济学用历史唯物主义方法将企业看作资本主义经济运行过程中的一个环节,揭示了企业产生和发展的原因,并精辟地分析了隐藏在物的背后的两大阶级之间的矛盾对立关系;新制度经济学采用逻辑实证的方法对企业进行分析,认为交易费用是决定企业产生及规模变化的重要因素,企业内部的控制和分配关系是由效率来决定的——这种将所有生产要素都看作是客观资源的分析方法,掩盖了利益分配的实质,从而忽视了人的主体性因素。     

Leadership and Privatisation in a Mixed Multi‐product Oligopoly: An Endogenous Timing Model

This paper examines both leadership choice and welfare consequences of privatisation in an endogenous timing mixed multi‐product oligopoly. It shows that a multi‐product firm undermines the welfare‐maximising efforts of a public firm by cross‐subsidising. The paper demonstrates that a unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium emerges in a multi‐product market, in contrast to the multiple equilibria of a single‐product market. This unique equilibrium indicates that profit‐maximising private firms retain leadership while a welfare‐maximising public firm acts as a follower. Even on the off‐equilibrium path where the public firm acts as a leader, it rarely generates maximum social welfare. However, privatising the public firm usually harms social welfare and results in a different timing structure in equilibrium.     

Mixed duopoly,privatization, and subsidization with excess burden of taxation

We investigate optimal tax‐subsidy policies in mixed and private oligopolies with excess burden of taxation. We compare the optimal subsidies and the resulting welfare levels among four regimes: mixed and private Cournot duopolies and Stackelberg competition with public and private leaderships. We show that, in contrast to the existing works on the privatization neutrality theorem, privatization affects resulting welfare.     

The structure of public debt and the choice of exchange rate regime

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between the denomination of public debt and the choice of exchange rate regime. Three types of debt (nominal, indexed, and foreign) and two regimes (fixed and flexible) are considered. Indexed debt is insulated against unexpected inflation. The real (domestic‐currency) value of foreign debt is subject to valuation effects from real exchange rate shocks. The ‘fear‐of‐floating’ result, that foreign debt makes pegging more attractive, is shown to hold unambiguously only if the peg is fully credible. If the peg lacks credibility, a critical factor is the perceived likelihood of using the ‘escape clause’ of a switch to a float, which raises the costs of pegging. Foreign debt increases the temptation to resort to the escape clause, so when a peg is not fully credible (as is almost always the case in reality), pegging tends to be less attractive than floating in the presence of foreign debt.     

Does privatization improve the environment? Revisiting the monopoly case

This note shows that the argument of Beladi and Chao (2006) [Beladi, H., Chao, C., 2006. Does privatization improve the environment? Economics Letters 93, 343-347] that privatization can harm the environment by inducing lower pollution tax is incorrect. It then modifies the model to restore their claim.     

THE MUNICIPAL WASTE MANAGEMENT SECTOR IN EUROPE: SHIFTING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN PUBLIC SERVICE AND THE MARKET

ABSTRACT: This paper provides a comparative assessment of the organization of urban waste management in selected European countries and discusses the regulatory implications of the ongoing evolution. Using an institutional economic approach, focused on governance of transactions along the value chain, we argue that: i) there is evidence of an increasing shift towards operator‐based integrated systems; ii) the emphasis put on material and energy recovery opens the market far beyond the traditional legal monopolies established for managing urban services. These results pose new challenges for economic regulation and make it more complicate to trace the boundary between the public service and the market domain. Spaces for competition in the market have become much larger, but the role of public regulation and planning are nonetheless more far‐reaching than in the past.     

AIRPORT PRIVATIZATION AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

We provide a simple theoretical model to explain the mechanism whereby the privatization of international airports can improve welfare. The model consists of a downstream (airline) duopoly with two inputs (landings at two airports) and two types of consumers. The airline companies compete internationally. We show that the outcome in which both airports are privatized is always an equilibrium, whereas that in which no airport is privatized is an equilibrium only if the degree of product differentiation is large. We also discuss airport congestion problems within the model framework.     

PRIVATIZATION AND EFFICIENCY GAIN IN AN INTERNATIONAL MIXED OLIGOPOLY WITH ASYMMETRIC COSTS*

This paper examines two policy instruments, privatization of the domestic public firm and imposition of a tariff on foreign private firms in an international mixed oligopolistic model with asymmetric costs. It first demonstrates that different orders of moves of firms will imply different government decisions on optimal tariff and on privatization policy. Following Hamilton and Slutsky (1990 ), this paper then uses an extended game to discuss endogenous roles. It indicates that the efficiency gain that highlights the importance of foreign competition is crucial in determining the welfare improving privatization policy. Moreover, the endogenous equilibria are associated with different government decisions on privatization.     

Workplace organization and innovation

Abstract This study uses panel data on Canadian establishments to explore the relationship between the organization of work – in particular decentralization, information‐sharing, and incentive pay schemes – and innovation. Like other studies, ours finds a clear positive link between these factors. However, the data give strong indications that this relationship is not causal. We show that: (1) the correlation between workplace organization and innovation holds for information‐sharing but is much weaker for decentralized decision‐making or incentive pay programs, (2) controls for unobserved heterogeneity significantly weaken results, and (3) lagged variables give no clear evidence that organizational changes predate innovation.     

Mixed oligopoly, optimal privatization, and foreign penetration

This paper examines the impact of foreign penetration on privatization in a mixed oligopolistic market. In contrast to the simple framework of single domestic market with foreign entry by entry mode of foreign direct investment (FDI) or exports, our result shows that government should increase the degree of privatization along with increasing proportion of domestic ownership of multinational firms. Furthermore, we show that an increase in domestic ownership of multinational firms raises all domestic private firms' profit and social welfare, while it may either increase or decrease public firm's profit. With the aid of numerical example, intensive competition from private firms in general will enhance the degree of privatization gradually; in particular, the degree of privatization is lower in the presence of multinational firms.     

Pricing behavior of the budget-constrained public enterprise

By assuming that a budget-constrained multiproduct public enterprise chooses prices with the goal of maximizing its budget, its revenue or its output, specific pricing rules can be derived. Rather than overstating demand elasticities and then pricing like a monopolist, as a budget-constrained welfare-maximizing firm would do, the enterprise pursuing one of these alternative goals is shown to understate marginal cost and then price like a monopolist. Non-optimal price discrimination and even cross subsidization may result. The outcome tends to be more perverse when statutory entry barriers protect some markets of the enterprise. In its pricing, the U.S. Postal Service has shown some of the signs of such other-than-welfare-maximizing pricing behavior.