Privatizing Government Services

Examines reasons for the current interest in privatization and describes the status of different forms of temporary privatization in a number of public services in the USA. Offers an analytical framework for making privatization decisions.

The 31 articles in this book discuss the pros and cons of privatization of public services. Examined are the need for alternative service delivery; the process of privatization; concrete examples of privatizing services generic to local governments; precautions; and the future of privatization.

An examination of privatization. This book deals with a variety of topics connected to this subject, including the characteristics of privatization alternatives, its applications in protective and human services, and problems which can occur with privatization.

Becker (policy and management, Florida International University) begins with an overview of the problems to be discussed, including propriety, legitimacy, political feasibility, administration challenges, and negative impacts associated with privatization. He goes on to discuss these issues in detail, with particular attention to the expanding scope of privatization, the types of organizations suited to perform the work of government, the dynamics of public- private partnerships, and recommendations for correcting the negative effects suffered by the providers and recipients of privatized services. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.

The book is divided into three major sections. The first presents a theoretical discussion that underlies the other essays. The second section deals with privatization issues from the perspective of the United States. The third describes research addressed to the U. K. and Canada. In the first chapter, Richard Zeckbauser and Murray Horn develop a wide-ranging theoretical framework for assessing the capabilities and role of state-owned enterprises; it provides a foundation for the analyses that follow. In The Control and Perfonnance o[ State-Owned Enterprises , they describe state-owned enterprises as an extreme case of the separation of ownership and control. The focus is on management --the incentives it faces and the conflicts to which it is subjected. The distinguishing characteristics of public enterprise, the authors suggest, give it a comparative advantage over both public bureaucracy and private enterprise in certain situations. They argue that legislators are more likely to prefer SOEs over private enterprise when the efficiency of private enterprise is undermined by regulation or the tbreat of opportunistic state action, when the informational demands of subsidizing private production to meet distributional objectives are high, when it is difficult to assign property rights, or when state ownership is ideologically appealing. These considerations suggest why SOEs are usually assigned special rights and responsibilities, and they help explain observed regularities in the distribution of SOEs across countries and sectors. Zeckhauser and Horn apply principal-agent theory to identify the key factors underlying the performance of state-owned enterprises.

Cost efficiency was the initial goal of privatization--achieved in many cases but not consistently. Public services provided by the private sector were cheap in the beginning but became increasingly expensive, especially to low-income citizens. The lessons learned from early successes and failures gave birth to a new goal--effectiveness of services, as measured by accountable results. Government officials are not looking just for proven budget savings; they must also be concerned with the quality of public services and ultimately the happiness of citizens and communities. In its updated second edition, this collection of essays explores the good and the bad sides of privatization. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Privatisation and deregulation was chosen as the topic of the annual Canada-UK Colloquium which was held in Scotland in 1987. Most of the papers presented here have been updated since that meeting. These papers discuss the Canadian and British privatisation programs. Also covered are telecommunications; transport; financial services; contracting-out; and problems and prospects with one article given for each country.