Economic And Legal Considerations Of Optimal Privatization

Successful privatization must be accompanied by the complete removal of privileges and any public policy mission. Bank behavior changes rapidly as profit maximation replaces the bureaucratic objective function. Once privileges are granted, they are difficult to remove. Therefore, privatization is a one-time (nonreversible) operation. The German mortgage bank, DePfa, went through a carefully planned and lengthy privatization process that was successful. Fannie Mae, the U.S. mortgage firm, became a privately owned institution endowed with special privileges, which led to a quasi-monopoly position. This resulted in suboptimal financial sector performance. Fannie Mae’s special privileges have proven resistant to reform efforts.

The main aims of this thesis are as follows:(a) To present a comprehensive analysis of the concept of privatisation its origins and limits, (b) To identify the legal and institutional framework for privatisation in different European countries from a comparative perspective; (c) To define and analyse particularly legal issues which arise during the privatisation transactions: e.g. labour law, competition law etc.; (d) To evaluate which features of the successful legal and organisational framework of privatisation have been successful so as to provide guidelines for those individuals and organisations participating in the privatisation exercises.This work found out that there is no simple, internationally applicable recipe for privatisation; various legal methods and techniques can be used to privatise state owned enterprises. Because each country has different circumstances, it is impossible to provide a unique model for privatisation; each country needs to design its own model according to its circumstances.Privatisation is an essential but insufficient element for structural economic reform in the economy and society. Privatisation is not a panacea, it is not the solution to every economic and administrative problem; selling an enterprise to the private sector does not mean an end to all problems. Also privatisation is not an overnight process or a magic touch; it will be a lengthy process. Furthermore, a decision that something can be privatised does not mean that it should be privatised.In that context, privatisation is not good or bad; it is an economic and social instrument. If it is well designed it may bring substantial benefits to the economy and society.In many countries, many state owned enterprises, particularly the ones which are financially weak, have still not been privatised. This finding revealed that the privatisation process will be in the political and economic agenda for at least few more decades.

Examining eight case studies on the role of law in various arenas, this collection of essays addresses the reconfiguration of the relations between the state, the market, and the family caused by privatization.

In an assessment of the pros and cons of public sector privatization, Sclar (urban planning, Columbia U.), who is affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, warns that outsourcing services may not result in leaner US government. He examines alternatives and offers tips for public sector reform. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This Selected Issues paper analyzes developments and issues in banking and financial markets in France. The paper provides an overview of the transition from a state-directed to a market-based financial system. It adopts a comprehensive approach and discusses the outcome of this transition in banking, insurance, and capital markets. The paper highlights the sequencing of financial sector modernization. The analysis concludes that, on balance, France has successfully modernized its financial industry and the financial system seems better prepared to operate successfully in the increasingly competitive international environment.

The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

From 1997 to 2001, more than 4,000 privatization operations have been carried out in more than 100 countries, bringing in government revenues of over 1,362 billion dollars. The phenomenon, which grew exponentially at the end of the 1990s and then abruptly slowed down, had dramatic consequences on the performance of state-owned enterprises and a significant impact on industrialized countries, as well as emerging and less developed economies. Yet there have been surprisingly fewattempts to provide a systematic empirical account of the privatization process at the worldwide level.Why do governments privatize? Why do some countries accomplish large-scale privatization programmes, and others never privatize at all? Is privatization a trend or a cycle? Furthermore, how do governments privatize? Do governments really transfer ownership and control of state-owned enterprises or does private ownership tend to coexist with public control?This book provides some answers to these important questions trying to test research hypotheses set forth by the recent economic theory of privatization.Comprehensive cross-country empirical analyses carried out over a period of more than twenty years are used in the book to show that privatization has taken place all over the world, sometimes spontaneously, more often under the pressure of economic and budgetary constraints. Several of the goals of the privatization have been met, but despite proclamations and programmes, only a small minority of countries has carried out a genuine privatization process, completely transferring ownership ofstate-owned enterprises to the private sector. A lack of political will is to some extent at the root of this reluctance. However this reluctance can be traced back partly to structural factors that would make an orderly privatization difficult, such as the absence of developed capital markets,appropriate regulation, and suitable institutions.

Human Rights or Global Capitalism examines the application of neoliberal policies from a human rights perspective and asks whether states, by outsourcing to the private sector many services with a direct impact on human rights, abdicate their responsibilities to uphold human rights and violate international law.