The post-communist European countries have faced enormous political and economic problems in attempting the transformation to a market oriented economy through two of the most important channels influencing this process--privatization and foreign investments. Focusing on Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland, the authors examine the trends toward privatization and the problems facing the countries economic managers and foreign investors. They explore what can be done to increase foreign direct and equity investment given the political risks involved in the economic transformation. Scholars and students of international economics, international trade, Russian and Eastern European studies, and government and international agencies should find this study on the relationship between privatization and foreign investment informative and useful.

The book addresses the management of privatization in post-communist countries and is aimed at defining and analyzing contextual and organizational characteristics of privatization in these transitional economies to build effective business concerns that behave competitively. While privatization has recently become popular and widely used in former socialist countries, its organizational requirements have often been overlooked. The book demonstrates salient features as well as dynamic relationships among various organizational properties of privatized firms. The volume includes both conceptual foundations and practical suggestions for transformation from a command economy to a market economy from a managerial and organizational perspectives. Additionally, it includes examples of privatization in Eastern and Central Europe. It will appeal to students, policy makers, and managers of privatization in post-communist countries.

This book presents an outstanding body of research on theoretical and practical aspects of the various applications of privatization in post-communist countries. A thorough analysis of strategy, structure, behavior, and process of transformation from a command to a market economy is discussed. The volume presents illustrative cases from Eastern Europe and provides a wide range of critical issues including planning, restructuring industrial organization, technology management, and human resource management based on personal experience of the authors or extensive studies on privatization in former socialist countries. It is an excellent source for further understanding the reasons for successes or failures of a variety of privatization applications.

One of the most enduring legacies of the 1980s has been the programme of privatizations that the Thatcher government set in train in the first half of the decade. Whole sectors of the UK economy which were formerly part of the public sector were sold off to the private sector. Some were bought out by their employees; others were bought by the public at large. Some public services were contracted out to the private sector; others were placed on a more commercial footing. The UK privatization programme had an influence on economic policy throughout the world. Programmes were also initiated in Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, North America, and, most recently, East and Central Europe. The purpose of this book, a companion volume to The Regulatory Challenge by the same editors, is to stand back and examine what has been learnt from the extensive programme of privatization that the UK government has completed, and to consider what aspects of privatization remain to be done. It attempts to evaluate systematically the privatizations that have been undertaken in different sectors of the UK economy over the last ten years. It examines what has happened and why, where the successes and failures have been, what lessons can be learnt for the design of privatization programmes elsewhere, and what the UK government can still usefully do in this area.

As import-substitution industrialization yields to increasing market liberalization in Latin America in the 1990s, privatization assigns new roles to both the public and private sectors. After the decade of the debt crisis, a much weakened State will reorient its policy efforts to the difficult issues of limited fiscal and monetary choices, regulation of newly privatized firms, and long-postponed social programs. However, privatization represents a mhallenge for the private sector as much as it is an issue for the public sector. Foreign and domestic capital will be asked to play a critical role in revitalizing battered economies. New players, from penny-capitalists to pension funds, and new institutions, including dramatically altered banking systems and suddenly thriving stock markets, have recently appeared. The changing roles of public and private sectors and the implications of these developments are the focus of this book.

A fundamental characteristic of the global economy during the 1990s is the reinvigoration of the private sector as the driving force for economic growth and social progress. This book surveys Central Europe during the early period of transition from late 1989 to early 1993, when governments were experimenting with privatization and economic reform, and assesses how privatization and economic reform policies have changed the business climate there. Rondinelli and his contributors provide an overview of economic reforms in Central European countries, offer a framework by which to compare them, describe the approaches to privatization their governments adopted, and identify the problems and challenges that each country faces in attempting to create a market-oriented economy. The result is a valuable resource for international management, international trade policy makers, and scholars of international business.

The process of economic restructuring is especially important and particularly complex in Central Europe, where Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Slovenia, and other independent states of former Yugoslavia are struggling to transform themselves from socialist to market economies. Each country faces equally complex challenges, however, in creating a new business climate that will nourish domestic enterprise and attract investments by multinational corporations. These challenges include: (1) privatizing state-owned enterprises that have dominated the economies of socialist countries; (2) developing public policies and programs that support the private sector, especially small- and medium-scale enterprises; (3) decentralizing the state administrative structure to allow regional and local governments to play a more active role in providing public services and supporting private enterprise; and (4) restructuring industry, agriculture, and services in order to diversify and reinvigorate the economic base (including infrastructure) of regions surrounding cities that are still dominated by heavy (and now largely obsolescent) manufacturing industries.

This book surveys the situation in Central Europe during the early period of transition in the early 1990s when governments in all four countries were experimenting with privatization and economic reform. The authors assess how privatization and economic reform policies have changed the business climate in this important region of the world. The editor provides an overview of economic reforms in Central European countries, offers a framework by which to compare them, describes the approaches to privatization their governments adopted, and identifies the problems and challenges that each country faces in attempting to create a market-oriented economy.

This volume develops an analytical framework for the examination of the politics of privatisation. Dobek argues that privatisation is a strategy employed by politicians in their drive for power. The material resources and formal powers at the disposal of governments make them great patrons for the construction of coalitions, intended to promote the interests of political parties. The author further argues that, based on the examples of Great Britain and Poland, any privatisation campaign is ultimately shaped by political, rather than economic concerns. This text is designed to interest scholars and students of politics and economics.

Privatization is both an economic adaptation and a strategy to alter the political landscape and the historical relationships between the public and the private sectors. Both of these aspects of privatization need to be understood and appreciated because one cannot take place without the other. The roles and dynamics of the public and private sectors change in privatization. Thus, the need arises for linking mechanisms able to harness and mesh the chanenged roles and dynamics of the two sectors. The Politics and Economics of Privatization identifies, defines, and addresses these implications. It does so by discussing the attempts in the 1980s to meet clean water needs through the privatization of wastewater treatment facilities. What is privatization? How does it work? What is required? What does it cost? Is it acceptable? What issues does it raise? What are its implications for the implementation of national policy?

What government activities should be contracted out to private companies? This thoughtful book by a Harvard policy analyst shuns global answers and explores how to examine individual cases.

William Tye draws on his large body of work in the area of railroad deregulation to address specific economic problems associated with deregulation. He elucidates principles that can be applied to any major industry entering the competitive marketplace--particularly telecommunications and other utilities, including gas and electric. Tye has updated and revised his previous articles and structured them into an integrated framework. Each section addresses a major issue and can be read on a stand-alone basis. By providing appropriate economic models and rules for successful transition, this work is designed to encourage a smooth changeover to deregulation.

It is important, Tye says, to recognize that the original problems regulation sought to solve do not simply go away, and that new problems can be created by the transition itself. He stresses the need to deal with legacies from the regulated past, such as investments, policies, labor contracts, and sunk investment costs by buyers. He explains why explicit regulatory intervention may be required to correct equity and efficiency imbalances. Sections cover topics such as finance and revenue adequacy, pricing, mergers, and competitive access and will serve as a valuable resource for attorneys, regulatory commission staff, academics, and consultants.

Grave financial woes swamping many developing world nations have spurred government interest in divestment as a means of reducing the role of the state in economic activity. Gradual ideological change in nations freed from colonial rule and pressures for reform applied by bilateral and international donor agencies have led to a growing acceptance of the trend toward privatization as a means to achieve both higher productivity and lower costs and to reduce the financial burden that subsidy costs to money-losing industries place on developing nations. L. Gray Cowan has created a how-to book for privatizing not only industry but also agriculture and services provided by the governments in developing world nations. Privatization in the Developing World focuses specifically on the privatization process with in-depth discussions, including preparing firms for disposition; making realistic, market-based valuations of the industries to be sold to private buyers; developing alternative methods of carrying out the sales; and creating more sophisticated finance packages for the privatization transaction. Both timely and readable, this handbook will enable officials of developing world states to initiate privatization strategies and to develop their own plans with the help of local civil servants. Following an introduction that provides background material relevant to the concept of privatization and the failure of state-owned enterprises, five chapters supply nuts-and-bolts information necessary to implement the process. Developing a Strategy for Privatization considers political and economic risk factors as well as the means to reduce them and also assesses various impediments and limitations. The emphasis here is on positive ways of overcoming obstacles and making the privatization strategy work. Chapter two discusses the choice of candidates for divestment and the preparation, valuation, sale, and financing of an SOE. Types of ownership, policy objectives, and management are also addressed. Chapter three proposes methods of privatizing municipal services, energy supplies, telecommunication systems, and health and education services. The chapter devoted to the agricultural sector discusses the special aspects of privatizing that sector, such as selling state-owned agricultural estates and privatizing land ownership. Results of experiments in agricultural privatization are also included. The final chapter, which considers the future of privatization in the developing world is followed by four helpful case histories that detail privatization efforts in Jamaica, Costa Rica, Tunisia, and Malawi. Cowan's handbook serves as an invaluable basic text on privatization techniques and methods and will be a most useful tool for government officers in the developing world whose responsibility is devising their government's strategy for a privatization program and implementing the decision to divest. It will be an important addition to college-level courses in economics and economic history.

American prisons and jails are overflowing with inmates. To relieve the pressure, courts have imposed fines on overcrowded facilities and fiscally strapped governments have been forced to release numerous prisoners prematurely. In this study, noted criminologist Charles Logan makes the case for commercial operation of prisons and jails as an alternative to the government's monopoly. On philosophical, economic, legal, and practical grounds, Logan argues a compelling case for the private and commercial operation of prisons. He critically examines all objections raised by opponents, and concludes that while private prisons face many potential problems, they do so primarily because they are prisons, not because they are private. Historically, the record of private ownership and operation of corrections facilities has been bleak--ridden with political corruption, physical abuse of prisoners, and the single-minded pursuit of profits. This study demonstrates that this need not be the case. Critiquing the tendency to contrast private prisons with a hypothetical ideal, Logan instead compares them with existing public institutions, arguing that the potential problems attributed to private prisons are experienced by their public counterparts. The work examines ten sets of issues, including the propriety, cost, security, and quantity of prisons, to set out a strong case for the viability of proprietary prisons.

Throughout the 1990's, privatization of inefficient state-owned enterprises was strongly embraced in developing and transitional economies. Little attention has gone to the distributional implications of the privatization movement, a particularly surprising oversight given the current backlash in many settings against further privatization. This book offers a comprehensive set of country-specific studies on the effects of privatization on people --winners and losers in different income, employment, and education groups. The studies analyze the changes in public tax revenue from privatized enterprises, shifts in pension and other liabilities, and changes in income of different groups. Contributors include David McKenzie (Stanford University), Dilip Mookherjee (Boston University), Gover Barja (Universidad Cat?lica Boliviana, La Paz), Miguel Urquiola (Columbia University), Samuel Freije (Universidad de Las Am?ricas in Puebla, Mexico), Luis A. Rivas (Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nicaragua), M?ximo Torero, Enrique Schroth, and Alberto Pasco Font (Group of Analysis for Development GRADE], Lima), Roberto Macedo (University of Sao Paulo, Presbyterian Mackenzie University, and Foundation Institute of Economic Research, Sao Paolo), Antonio Estache (World Bank), Michael Bleyzer and Edi Segura (SigmaBleyzer Corporation), Gary H. Jefferson, (Brandeis University), Su Jian (Brandeis and Peking Universities), Jiang Yuan and Yu Xinhua (National Bureau of Statistics, Beijing), and Malathy Knight-John and P.P.A. Wasantha (Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka).

Nominated for the 2006 IPEG Book Prize

Drawing on the research of ten scholars from around the world, this volume evaluates China's privatization experience by investigating the efficiency and fairness of the sale process and the credibility of the government's ambition to create world-class state-owned conglomerates.
One of the first book-length works to evaluate China's privatization experience.
Draws on the research of ten scholars from around the world including Liu Xiaoxuan (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Sun Laixiang (SOAS, London University) and Chih-jou Jay Chen (Academic Sinica).
Investigates the factors determining the decision by government officials to sell or retain their firms.
Evaluates how credible the government's ambition is to create world-class state-owned conglomerates.
Compares the efficiency and fairness of the sales against the lessons learned from the former Soviet bloc.
Explains how the state is withdrawing from key sectors such as automobiles, energy and telecoms.

Since 1981, over 100 governments around the world have raised over $1 trillion through the sale of SOEs to private investors. Privatization programs have transformed the role of the state in virtually all-major economies, and have massively increased the capitalization and liquidity of all non-U.S. stock markets. The focus of this book lies on where privatization stands today and what are the next frontiers, the why and how behind countries who privatize certain industries, whether privatization works as an economic tool and important insights relevant to financial institutions such as how to value privatized industries, how share offerings differ from private offerings, and how countries go about harnessing private capital. The book will also represent a key and unique source for information related to the details of asset sales privatization, a summary of statistics of privatized companies from 54 international stock exchanges, regulatory changes and sources for privatization information for investors, government officials, bankers and financial specialists. The volume will serve as an invaluable reference for professionals and as a core or supplementary text in privatization courses.

This volume examines energy security in a privatized, liberalized, and increasingly global energy market, in which the concept of sustainability has developed together with a higher awareness of environmental issues, but where the potential for supply disruptions, price fluctuation, and threats to infrastructure safety must also be considered. Part I commences with an essential introductory chapter which defines energy security and sets forth the key issues and themes of the book. There then follow several cross-cutting chapters which include sceptical analysis of energy security claims from an environmental perspective and a broader geopolitical analysis of energy security. Part II examines a wide variety of international, regional, and national approaches to energy security issues. Energy security concerns differ considerably from country to country, however most of the chapters examining particular nations provide an economic and historical context of their energy security concerns, followed by a detailed analysis of the legal provisions relating to each of the main energy sectors (oil, gas, coal, electricity, nuclear, and renewable energies). This entails examination of regulation, organization, and planning for security and other purposes. In a number of cases, energy security law is shaped by other factors such as market liberalization, environmental protection, and competition policy. Part III comprises two final chapters, the first contrasting the various national and regional approaches and analysing cross-cutting issues, whilst the concluding chapter forecasts future trends in the legal regulation of energy security.

The privatization of water supply is an emotive and controversial topic. The 'British model' of water privatization is unique: no other country has entirely privatized its water supply and sewerage systems. This book analyzes the socio-economic and environmental dimensions in privatization in England and Wales. It examines the implications of privatization for consumers, environmental management, and the water supply industry.

With evidence drawn from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Great Britain, and Hungary, "Re-forming the State" examines the processes leading to, and the political effects of, market reform experiments and focuses specifically on the patterns of collective action and coalition building that drive privatization. The author's argument calls into question established approaches in the discipline of economics and in the fields of comparative and international political economy.
The experience of privatization shows that the public and the private are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive spheres, and that power relations between them are not necessarily zero-sum. To stress the point, the author borrows from the literature on state formation, which has extensively examined the historical processes of key private groups. The evidence presented shows why and how, by restructuring coalitional and institutional arenas, the state uses marketization to generate political order and to distribute political power. Thus, the author specifies the conditions under which political change is conceived in terms of and channeled through economic policy; in other words, how the state is "re-formed" through privatization. "Re-forming the State" thus highlights how privatization is simultaneously a movement from public to private, but also a movement from non-state to state, as the reduction of state assets leads to institutional changes that increase state capacities for defining and enforcing property rights, extracting revenue, and centralizing administrative and political resources.
Hector E. Schamis is Assistant Professor of Government, Cornell University.

The book analyses both the macro and micro factors under which policies of privatization of nationalized industries took place in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. It examines the economics of achieving privatization, the policy reform that took place, and the factors that emerged to wither encourage or deter privatization.

The impact of deregulation on the theory and practice of investment appraisal is addressed in this comprehensive treatment of the restructuring of the electricity supply industry. Demonstrating that the classical approach to generation investment appraisal is no longer valid, a new approach is developed using three economic models to represent differing market conditions. Highlighting the impact on the organisation of the utilities and their suppliers, Electricity Markets offers essential advice for survival in the deregulated environment worldwide. Features include:

• Examination of the alternative market structures and their mechanisms
• Methods for investment appraisal and market simulation to support the assessment of market strategies by generators, distributors and suppliers
• Use of game theory to predict market behaviour and competitive interaction
• Coverage of the analytical and technical aspects of grid deregulation plus a look ahead to the long term productivity and structure of the industry
• Discussion of the regulatory framework and its limitations in improving efficiency and encouraging optimum levels of investment

This timely book will enlighten a broad audience ranging from utility managers and suppliers involved in deregulation to consultants and academics concerned with managing change.

How far should the Hong Kong government privatize its public utilities? After examining the British and the American experience in privatizing public utilities, and after a review of Hong Kong's own experience in privatizing car parks and road tunnels, the authors argue for the privatization of the water industry.

There has been much speculation about the introduction of the contract culture in the public services and its consequences for those involved (including service users). This book, which is based on original research, sets out to examine the impact of contracts in three areas of the public service: health, social services, and other government activities. These findings are set in the context of policy development for the public sector as a whole. Detailed case studies in selected areas reveal the varying different patterns that have emerged. A study of the attitudes of those involved illuminates the different perspectives of participants. In the concluding chapters the authors review the policy implications of the study and identify likely future developments.

The past decade has witnessed a worldwide and more or less irreversible shift away from state ownership. This "megatrend" is expected to last well into the next millennium. Given policymakers' previous strong inclination toward nationalization and state ownership, one must ask: Why change now? Markets, States, and Public Policy concentrates on the experience of Britain and France, two pioneers of privatization, and draws specifically on detailed case studies of three sectors: oil, telecommunications, and railroads. The book shows that privatization is brought about by the interplay of three factors at critical junctures of time: available policy alternatives, the ideological complexion and strategy of the governing parties, and widening government budget deficits. Thus, privatization is a politically forged decision to forego direct control over markets in favor of indirect control. Zahariadis applies the multiple streams approach, extending the theory in two important ways: first, by giving it an explicitly comparative focus and, second, by broadening its explanatory reach to cover policy adoption in addition to agenda setting. In doing this, the author strikes a unique balance between theoretical analysis and empirical rigor. Zahariadis's novel way of comparatively examining the dynamics of policy choice and his use of literature that cuts across the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy will attract the interest of students of political science, public administration, economics, and sociology.