Privatization: Successes and Failures

by Gérard Roland, Joseph E. Stiglitz

Overview

The privatization of large state-owned enterprises is one of the most radical policy developments of the last quarter century. Right-wing governments have privatized in an effort to decrease the size of government, while left-wing governments have privatized either to compensate for the failures of state-owned firms or to generate revenues. In this way, privatization has spread from Europe to Latin America, from Asia to Africa, reaching its zenith with Central and Eastern Europe's transition from socialism to capitalism.

In many countries state ownership has been an important tool in bringing cheap water, energy, and transport to poorer segments of the population. In other instances, it has sponsored aggressive cutbacks, corruption, and cronyism. Privatization: Successes and Failures evaluates the practices and results of privatization in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Featuring the world's leading economists and experts on privatization, this volume offers a broad and balanced analysis of specific privatization projects and uncovers some surprising trends. Partial privatization, for example, tends to be more widespread than one might think, and the effects of privatization on efficiency are generally mixed but rarely negative. Also, while privatization appears uncontroversial in competitive sectors, it becomes increasingly complex in more monopolistic sectors where good regulation is crucial. Privatization concludes with alternative frameworks for countries in Africa and other regions that seek to develop privatization policy and programs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231141604
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	06/23/2008
Series:	Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia: Challenges in Development and Globalization
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gérard Roland is professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley. A leading expert in the field of transition economics and institutional change, he is the author of Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets, and Firms.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank. Among his books are Escaping the Resource Curse and Globalization and Its Discontents, which has been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

What People are Saying About This

Patrick Bolton

Privatization: Successes and Failures provides the first broad assessment of the benefits and costs of privatization policies around the world for over the past twenty years. Privatization is an important and controversial policy issue, and unlike previous studies, this book's goal is not to champion privatization policies but rather to undertake a deep and careful evaluation of them.

— Patrick Bolton, David Zalaznick Professor of Business, Columbia University

Interviews

From the Introduction:

Developed by the IPD Privatization Task Force, Privatization: Successes and Failures brings together the ideas of the world's foremost experts on privatization. The volume is a sophisticated analysis of the trade-offs between public and private ownership and is accessible not only to academics but also to a far wider audience. Many of the trade-offs pointed to here in this book can now be observed in the actual experience of privatization worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

This book should be compulsory reading.

Paul Sweeney

An extremely valuable monograph... Highly recommended.

Choice

This book should be compulsory reading.

— Paul Sweeney

Irish Times