The privatization program of the city of St. Petersburg

The privatization program of the City of St. Petersburg is unique in its approach. With over 15,000 enterprises in the City's portfolio, a select group of companies were chosen for pilot transactions prior to creating overarching institutional framework. Drawn from field experience, Bogdanowicz-Bindert and Ryan analyze program progress to date and attempt to draw lessons applicable to a wider spectrum of companies, not only in St. Petersburg, but in Russia in general.     

The Dismantling of CONASUPO,a Mexican State Trader in Agriculture

In the 1990s, Mexico gradually dismantled and ultimately liquidated CONASUPO, its state enterprise in agriculture. CONASUPO was a typical less developed country (LDC) parastatal, exacting control over an important component of Mexico's food chain. This paper examines the demise of CONASUPO in the context of domestic economic reforms and trade liberalisation. It documents the process by which CONASUPO was eleminated, the political environment that made this possible, and the implications for agricultural production and trade. The paper concludes by distilling lessons from Mexico's experience for other LDCs as the liberalisation of domestic and international markets continues to unfold.     

The making of an African success story: The privatization of Kenya Airways

This article explores the transformation of Kenya Airways from a loss‐making stateowned enterprise (SOE) to a very successful, profitable African airline and its relationship with KLM‐Royal Dutch Airlines. First, it analyzes the circumstances leading to the creation of Kenya Airways and then discusses the managerial and financial problems it encountered from the period it was set up until it was privatized. It also attempts to explain why and how Kenya Airways has been able to use privatization to avert liquidation. In this regard, it explores the benefits of privatization for the airline and the country as a whole and highlights lessons learned from this experience for the privatization process and strategies in Africa. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Privatization in Russia: What Should be a Firm?

This paper examines a variety of issues associated with the restructuring of Russian industry prior to privatization, from a transactions cost perspective. It is argued that none of the components of the industrial hierarchies inherited from the Soviet system corresponded closely to firms in a modem market economy. Moreover, product–level concentration of production created potential monopoly problems. Ideally, it would have been desirable to restructure Russian industry to create efficient organizations and competitive market structures prior to privatization. However, political and information constraints precluded widespread fine tuning of the existing industrial hierarchies prior to privatization. Given these constraints, the decision of the Gaidar government to focus privatization on ’enterprises’, i.e. the smallest organizational units within the industrial hierarchies, was sensible and led to significant deconcentration of Russian industry. Policies with regard to voluntary separation of subunits of enterprises and aggregation of enterprises prior to privatization also helped to promote deconcentration. Significant additional restructuring of Russian industry is expected now that the mass privatization has been completed.     

The value-added of investment bankers in privatizations

Investment bankers are important advisors both to vendors and acquirers in privatization transactions. Their utility is derived from a thorough understanding of the process of privatization and from their objectivity in assessing and valuing an enterprise. While the international profile and large size of most privatizations are seemingly attractive, predictable pitfalls can be expected. Gallo's “ten rules of thumb” provide wise counsel to investment banks currently in or contemplating entry into the market for privatization services.     

Effectiveness and Efficiency in Privatization Advertising

The privatization of a number of British nationalized industries during the 1980s involved the use of substantial marketing and, in particular, advertising expenditure. When the same or similar activities are repeated, some experience or learning curve effect can be expected, such that the relative efficiency of performing that activity rises. From an examination of the objectives for and the process of privatization, a learning curve effect might be expected that would result in a progressive lowering of privatization marketing and advertising costs.

The data on privatization from 1981 to 1989 shows the expected learning curve effect for total marketing cost, the total cost reducing over subsequent privatizations. However, the relative cost of advertising first rose and then failed to fall, even when the objectives for privatization changed from widening share ownership to deepening it. The expected learning curve is not then observable, leading to the conclusion that inefficiency existed in the advertising of privatizations, particularly in the late 1980s, and that considerable sums could have been saved if a different strategy had been followed.     

Gravity,Borders, and Regionalism: A Canada–US Sub-National Analysis

ABSTRACT

This article examines the extent to which trade costs influence the magnitude and direction of both east-west and north-south trade in Canada and the United States. With the aid of an alternative framework which pays attention to key estimation issues in the gravity literature, we garner further evidence in support of a decline, over time, in the home bias syndrome. Our results uphold the Linder hypothesis but refute the Heckscher-Ohlin factor endowment proposition. In light of the recently modernized trilateral trade agreement in North America, we conclude with policy lessons on buffering the Canadian economy from asymmetric trade shocks from its southern neighbor.     

美国监狱私有化原因研究

私有化是将政府整体或部分职责转移到私人部门的过程,监狱私有化意味着私人部门参与提供传统上由政府提供的管教服务.探究美国监狱私有化的原因,有助于估计私人监狱运动的发展前景.美国监狱私有化现象的主要动因在于快速增长的囚犯、监狱过度拥挤和成本问题.尽管监狱私有化不一定向声称的那样能够大幅度降低成本和提高效率,但是真正重要的是认识到私有化节约成本和提高效率本身是竞争过程的结果.最为重要的事情是决定如何最好地提供有关服务,而不是简单地选择要么由公共部门,要么由私人部门负责监狱体系的运转.通过引入竞争力量与机制,监狱私有化也许仍然有发展的空间.     

Allocative efficiency,mark-ups,and the welfare gains from trade

This paper develops an index of allocative efficiency that depends upon the distribution of mark-ups across goods and is separable from an index of standard Ricardian gains from trade. It determines how changes in trade frictions affect allocative efficiency in an oligopoly model of international trade, decomposing the effect into the cost-change channel and the price-change channel. Formulas are derived shedding light on the signs and magnitudes of the two channels. In symmetric country models, trade tends to increase allocative efficiency through the cost-change channel, yielding a welfare benefit beyond productive efficiency gains. In contrast, the price-change channel has ambiguous effects on allocative efficiency.     

Allocative efficiency,mark-ups,and the welfare gains from trade

This paper develops an index of allocative efficiency that depends upon the distribution of mark-ups across goods and is separable from an index of standard Ricardian gains from trade. It determines how changes in trade frictions affect allocative efficiency in an oligopoly model of international trade, decomposing the effect into the cost-change channel and the price-change channel. Formulas are derived shedding light on the signs and magnitudes of the two channels. In symmetric country models, trade tends to increase allocative efficiency through the cost-change channel, yielding a welfare benefit beyond productive efficiency gains. In contrast, the price-change channel has ambiguous effects on allocative efficiency.     

Privatization: The theme of the 1990s

Privatization has clearly become the development issue of the 1990s. While not an end in itself, privatization of state owned enterprises should be viewed as a critical element of economic adjustment. Distilled from his extensive involvement with privatization programs, Lieberman identifies the underlying rationale for privatization, presents lessons to be learned in program design, and cautions against pitfalls to successful program implementation.     

The privatization of swarzedz furniture company (SFM): Lessons from Poland's first underwritten public offering

The sale through public offering of Poland's Swarzedz Furniture Company demonstrates that relatively complex privatization transactions can be successfully implemented in economies where capital market institutions have not yet fully emerged. However, the company's performance before and after privatization suggests that a change of ownership is a necessary, but not a sufficient, requirement for effective restructuring of a state-owned enterprise in a formerly socialist economy.     

Privatization strategies: Is Brazil moving in the wrong gear?

In the 1980s, marketization strategies gained momentum around the globe. Increasingly, the visible hand was being replaced by a revival of neoliberal growth strategies. Privatization was a response to state-owned enterprise, sluggish performance, and excessive intervention in sectors not requiring assistance. In many countries the state became the problem and not the solution for further gains in competitiveness and efficiency. Privatization strategies were implemented more aggressively in Latin America in the 1980s and early 1990s. In Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, policymakers used erratic strategies from the early 1980s through the early 1990s. This article addresses the Brazilian privatization experience, paying heed to the dynamics of the different strategies pursued throughout the privatization programs and elaborating on the specific steps taken by the Brazilian policymakers. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Optimal trade,industrial, and privatization policies in a mixed duopoly with strategic managerial incentives

Abstract

This paper examines optimal trade, industrial, and privatization policies in a home-market model of mixed international duopoly with strategic managerial incentives. Under linear demand and constant marginal costs, the optimal degree of privatization is shown to depend crucially on cost and demand parameters and on the availability of strategic trade and industrial policies. If both firms are equally efficient, optimal trade and industrial policies drive out the foreign firm and the privatization policy loses its effect on national welfare; however, if the home firm is less efficient, then full privatization combined with an import tariff and a production subsidy is optimal for the home country, while an export subsidy is optimal for the foreign country. If trade and industrial policies are unavailable and if both firms are equally efficient, full state-ownership, which drives out the foreign firm, becomes optimal; however, if the home firm is less efficient, only partial privatization is optimal, The state-ownership share is increased if either the market size grows, the home firm's efficiency increases, or the foreign firm's efficiency decreases. Further, the paper demonstrates the potential conflict between privatization and trade liberalization policies.     

Privatization in Saudi Arabia: Is slow beautiful?

The aim of this article is to abridge the dearth of academic research on Saudi Arabia's privatization strategy, which is touted by government as key to empowering the business community in the largest economy in the Middle East and North Africa region. Whereas some contend privatization has moved at a slow pace and that the business model employed for privatizing public enterprises lacks commercial business efficiency standards, government retorts that, guided by an organized and sequential process, privatization has been successful. This article maintains that if privatization is to confer the benefits claimed for it and sway international investors equipped with modern managerial skills and technical know‐how, authorities need to accelerate privatization and subject enterprises to steadfast market competitive forces. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

中国城市水务产业民营化的绩效评价实证研究

本文从总量水平、生产效率、利润和普遍服务水平四个方面构建了中国城市水务产业民营化的绩效评价指标体系,运用1990-2009年的数据检验了民营化对有关指标的影响。检验结果表明,民营化对增加城市水务产业供水总量和利润均有显著影响,但民营化对提高生产效率和普遍服务水平均没有显著影响。从分析结果看,城市水务产业利润增加很可能是由于水价提高造成的,因此政府必须建立有效的价格管制体系。同时,政府在推进民营化的过程中,应出台激励政策引导民营资本进入管网建设领域,以提高普遍服务水平。     

Fuel-efficient stoves for Darfur: The social construction of subsistence marketplaces in post-conflict settings

This paper explores the development of market roles and transactions in fuel-efficient stoves in Darfur from 1997 to 2008 as a grounded example of how subsistence markets are socially constructed in post-conflict settings. Using a combination of archival texts, interviews, and real-time discourses by protagonists, this study explains the who, what, why and how of emergent marketplaces by showing how development interventions come to imbue market participants and transactions with socially (re)constructed meanings. The fitful emergence of subsistence marketplaces for fuel-efficient in Darfur is punctuated by development interventions which at times under- or misrepresent market participants and by successes and failures in bringing together trainers, producers, sellers, consumers and users of fuel-efficient stoves. Subsidies and handouts delay and distort the emergence of grassroots demand, choices, and prices; a plurality of competing development interventions re-shape the supply. By the end of 2008, the subsistence market for fuel-efficient stoves catches momentum, engaging over 52% of the Darfuri communities in market transactions for the product. As market participants gain voice and influence they reshape the market to favour mud stoves over metal stoves. Reports by several development organizations suggest that among fuel-efficient stove users, 90% use mud models, and 49% of women who own both mud and metal stoves prefer mud stoves.     

The role of small firms in the industrial development and transformation of Czechoslovakia

This article presents an analysis of the role of small firms in the formation and reform of the Czechoslovak manufacturing sector. It attempts to give an understanding of the industrial structure formed under the past regime within the framework of the mass production paradigm. As manufacturing productivity gradually declined over the past 25 years and small firms have been virtually eliminated, systemic preference has been given to the development of large monopolies. Consequently, a monolithic coalition structure of enterprise managers, state bureaucrats, and political nomenklatura has arisen and continues to present itself as a serious hindrance to economic transformation. While small firms have the potential to play a critical role in the democratic marketization of Czechoslovakia, current government preoccupation with the rapid privatization of the state sector risks damaging the development of a balanced distribution of firm size and, in turn, the revitalization of the society.     

The use of NDAs in the IT service sector

Business people are advised to use contracts for the protection of their assets when entering business transactions with other strategic partners. Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are examples of such contracts that limit what those with access to certain knowledge can do with the privileged information. However, knowledge is constantly changing as soon as someone gains knowledge and adds personal knowledge to that knowledge. As such, the NDA may be redundant soon after it is signed. IT service professionals realize the boundless nature of knowledge and regularly work with professional colleagues to provide technical services to their customers. I provide a qualitative analysis of interviews with four IT service professionals on their use of NDAs in formal business transactions and in informal consultative sessions. I find positive attitudes toward the use of NDAs in formal business transactions such as in strategic partnerships but limited use of NDAs in informal consultative sessions.     

British privatization: Evaluating the results

The 24 studies reviewed here reveal that nine of the 13 primary objectives of the U.K.'s privatization program have substantially been achieved. Privatization has reduced the size and scope of government, reduced political interference in management decisions, freed government funds so they can be used in sectors of the economy other than state-owned businesses, created a free market economy, promoted domestic investment, benefited the economy through higher returns on capital invested in privatized businesses, generated new sources of tax revenue, broadened domestic equity ownership and promoted equity ownership among employees of privatized businesses. Most of the research reviewed concludes that privatization has reduced the government's budget deficit; provided consumers with improved service, better quality, more choices, new products and lower prices; and improved the efficiency and performance of privatized firms. Finally, most of the studies reviewed report mixed results regarding the privatization program's success at reducing government control of business.