Legitimized by the arguments of efficiency gains, public housing, pensions, unemployment insurance and health care are all being gradually privatized. In many countries, even the state's 'night-watchmen' role of providing security is offered by private prisons and security guards. In the face of these and other developments, this book argues that on the basis of efficiency, morality and equality there is still an overwhelming need for public intervention - the res publica. Public or Private Goods? brings together leading scholars from various disciplines including economics, sociology, political science, geography and spatial planning. The book explores core public tasks that the state has traditionally provided but which are increasingly privatized and subsumed into the private sector. For example, although the state still funds and regulates core domains, it provides fewer and fewer visible goods. The authors show how this apparent invisibility of the state presents serious challenges for both income equality and democracy. This thoughtful interdisciplinary book will appeal to advanced students and academics in political science, public sector economics and public finance. It will also provide stimulating reading for politicians, policymakers and anyone interested in the provision of public services. Contributors include: F. Blank, G. Bonvissuto, J. Ferwerda, M. Getzner, G. Gutheil-Knopp-Kirchwald, J. Kadi, T. Knijn, I. Koetsier, J. Lewis, B. Unger, D. van der Linde, K. van Egmond, F. van Waarden

On the 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed a tower block in West London, seventy-two people lost their lives and hundreds of others were left displaced and traumatised. The Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre of a long history of violence enacted by government and corporations. On its second anniversary activists, artists and academics come together to respond, remember and recover the disaster. The Grenfell Tower fire illustrates Britain's symbolic order; the continued logic of colonialism, the disposability of working class lives, the marketisation of social provision and global austerity politics, and the negligence and malfeasance of multinational contractors. Exploring these topics and more, the contributors construct critical analysis from legal, cultural, media, community and government responses to the fire, asking whether, without remedy for multifaceted power and violence, we will ever really be 'after' Grenfell? With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi. With contributions from Phil Scraton, Daniel Renwick, Nadine El-Enany, Sarah Keenan, Gracie Mae Bradley and The Radical Housing Network.

Originally published in 1984, Privatisation and the Welfare State brings together a distinguished set of experts on the Welfare State and its main policy areas of health care, housing, education and transport. Each chapter provides some much-needed analysis of privatisation policies in areas where, too often, political rhetoric is allowed to dominate discussion. The book makes a major contribution to the reader's understanding of the complex issues involved in this controversial area of social policy. As the first systematic evaluation of a broad range of welfare state privatisation proposals, it is essential reading for economists, social administrators, and political scientists.

Written to help school board members, administrators, parents, and other community residents involved in the privatization debate, this volume maintains a useful balance of scholarship and craft. It provides both theory and practice, presenting practical information to guide those who must deal with policy and procedural issues related to privatizing one or more school district functions.

This textbook is a development of Financial Reporting by Alexander and Britton, and is designed to meet the emerging demand for coverage of international accounting standards (IASs) and the globalization of accounting in advanced courses. It is predicated on an IAS framework but the European directives, especially as regards detailed formats having no direct equivalent in IASs, are discussed in detail. The European context and, in the case of important markets, the national context is recognised and contrasted with the international approach. Important non-European influences, especially those from the US, are also included in order to provide a genuinely wide-ranging appreciation of the implications of accounting internationalism. Part 1 contains coverage of the theoretical underpinnings of financial reporting in an international context. It also describes the international, European and domestic regulatory framework of accounting. Part 2 starts by analysing the legal background of the concept of capital and profit.

Privatization, Deregulation and the Macroeconomy focuses on the macroeconomic consequences of microeconomic rigidity in the markets for goods or services and the reforms necessary to create economic dynamism. Peter van Bergeijk and Robert Haffner address questions of how market structure, competition policy, over-regulation and collusive behaviour may influence macroeconomic performance. Drawing on many examples from the OECD countries (most notably, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands), Eastern Europe and the Third World, the authors show how economic policies intended to provide greater flexibility can be analysed. The authors examine the diagnosis or measurement of product market inertia at the mesoeconomic level and its consequences at the macroeconomic level such as employment, per capita income growth and price stability. In Privatization, Deregulation and the Macroeconomy, Peter van Bergeijk and Robert Haffner deal not only with practical policy matters but also with the theoretical issues of how to determine price rigidity (hysteresis on the product markets) and their macroeconomic implications. This book will be welcomed by economists interested in industrial organization, macroeconomics, neo Keynesianism, development economics and transitional economies and will also be of interest to policymakers.

The task of turning the state-owned assets of the Eastern European countries over to private ownership is one of the most challenging of our time, both intellectually and in practical terms. Ivan Major's in-depth critique of the plans and programmes of the East European governments addresses the core issues of privatization from the perspective of both potential winners and losers. After discussing the analytical framework, he offers an assessment of the legacy of the command economy and includes individual country studies of Czechoslovakia, the former GDR, Hungary, Poland and the former Soviet Union. The following chapters look at the theoretical, political and economic underpinning as well as assessments of the initial results of East European privatizations. Dr Major argues that the whole network of political regulation must be dismantled if an efficient market economy is to emerge. Privatization in Eastern Europe offers a critical analysis of the movement towards privatization in Eastern Europe as well as an authoritative assessment of the existing literature. This book will be welcomed by scholars and policymakers as an important source of analysis, argument and information.

It is a widely held idea that Russia has completed its revolution which brought down the Soviet economy, and that many companies after privatisation work as typical western companies. Another belief is that Russia has adopted a market economy but then reverted to authoritarianism. With these two ideas in mind, this book discusses the suggestion that the key element of post-Soviet economic and political reforms in the last two decades was the redistribution of assets from the state to oligarchs and the new elite. It looks at why most Russian companies could not achieve strong long-run corporate performance by analysing in detail a range of different Russian companies. The book is a useful tool for understanding the future prospects for Russian business.

Despite a half-century of literature documenting the experience and meanings of countertransference in analytic practice, the concept remains a source of controversy. For Peter Carnochan, this can be addressed only by revisiting historical, epistemological, and moral issues intrinsic to the analytic enterprise. Looking for Ground is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding of countertransference on the basis of a contemporary reappraisal of just such foundational assumptions. Carnochan begins by reviewing the history of the psychoanalytic encounter and how it has been accompanied by changes in the understanding of countertransference. He skillfully delineates the complexities that underlie Freud's apparent proscription of countertransference before tracing the broadening of the concept in the hands of later theorists. Part II examines the problem of epistemology in contemporary analytic practice. The answer to this apparent quandary, he holds, resides in a contemporary appreciation of affect, which, rather than merely limiting or skewing perception, forms an essential "promontory" for human knowing. The final section of Looking for Ground takes up what Carnochan terms the "moral architecture" of psychoanalysis. Rejecting the claim that analysis operates in a realm outside conventional accounts of value, he argues that the analytic alternative to traditional moralism is not tantamount to emancipation from the problem of morality. With wide-ranging scholarship and graceful writing, Carnochan refracts the major theoretical and clinical issues at stake in contemporary psychoanalytic debates through the lens of countertransference - its history, its evolution, its philosophical ground, its moral dimensions. He shows how the examination of countertransference provides a unique and compelling window through which to apprehend and reappraise those basic claims at the heart of the psychoanalytic endeavor.

The public sector's need for new revenues, sparked by political change and economic pressures at home and abroad, has reversed the century-old trend toward government growth in favor of private sector management and ownership. Political upheaval in Eastern Europe, crippling debt in Latin America, and a volatile North American economy have created a climate in which privatization has emerged as a dramatic new business opportunity. While providing governments with a chance to cut losses and quickly generate much-needed cash, privatization offers new investment opportunities with strong upside potential for businesses. From news-making purchases involving Russian railroads and Brazilian agro-industries, to more modest investments, such as Romanian shoe factories and Texas grade schools, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have consistently, proven to be among the most sought-after buys of the past decade. Based on years of privatization consulting by the professionals at Ernst & Young in Europe, Asia, Latin America, the U.S., and Canada, this new book provides practical guidance for involvement in and purchasing of state-owned enterprises. Combining principle with real-life case studies, this hands-on guide takes you step-by-step through the entire process - from research and planning to negotiating, purchasing, and managing.

It is a widely held idea that Russia has completed its revolution which brought down the Soviet economy, and that many companies after privatisation work as typical western companies. Another belief is that Russia has adopted a market economy but then reverted to authoritarianism. With these two ideas in mind, this book discusses the suggestion that the key element of post-Soviet economic and political reforms in the last two decades was the redistribution of assets from the state to oligarchs and the new elite. It looks at why most Russian companies could not achieve strong long-run corporate performance by analyzing a comprehensive database of different Russian companies. The book is a useful tool for understanding the prospects of future Russian business.

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.

This book examines one of the most high-profile municipal privatizations-the privatization of New York City's Central Park. The fiscal crisis of the 1970s established the political and cultural opening for privatizations, which were justified on the basis of increasing efficiency. However, as Cooke demonstrates, these justifications were deliberately blind to the social and economic implication of privatization. This fascinating account moves beyond the hackneyed pro- versus anti-privatization debate by reconceptualizing the park's privatization as an ensemble of contradictory class effects. It also highlights the immense theoretical and policy space for radically reconsidering and rethinking privatization processes in both the municipal and global contexts.

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.

Public services throughout Europe have undergone dramatic restructuring processes in recent years in connection with liberalization and privatization. While evaluations of the successes of public services have focused on prices and efficiency, much less attention has been paid to the impacts of liberalization and privatization on employment, labor relations, and working conditions. This book addresses this gap by illustrating the ways in which liberalization has contributed to increasing private and foreign ownership of public services, the decentralization of labor relations has amplified pressure on wages, and decreasing employment numbers and increasing workloads have improved productivity partly at the cost of service quality. Examining diverse public-service sectors including network industries, public transportation, and hospitals, and using international case studies, Privatization of Public Services covers a wide range of aspects of service provision, with particular emphasis on companies and workers. The result is a unique picture of the changes created by the liberalization processes in Europe.

This is a carefully edited selection of the most important articles concerning the impact of privatisation on corporate performance. It consists of 26 of the most significant papers on the subject previously published in leading journals around the world.Following a new introductory overview of the subject by the editor, Privatisation and Corporate Performance is divided into four main sections. Part I features material on the theory of privatisation. Part II follows with empirical studies of state and private ownership. Part III consists of papers on empirical studies of privatisation. The final part focuses on outstanding issues of privatisation and corporate performance and includes pointers to future research. This authoritative collection will be of particular interest to academics and students of privatisation and to managers, policymakers and consultants who are concerned with designing privatisation programmes.

On the 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed a tower block in West London, seventy-two people lost their lives and hundreds of others were left displaced and traumatised. The Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre of a long history of violence enacted by government and corporations. On its second anniversary activists, artists and academics come together to respond, remember and recover the disaster. The Grenfell Tower fire illustrates Britain's symbolic order; the continued logic of colonialism, the disposability of working class lives, the marketisation of social provision and global austerity politics, and the negligence and malfeasance of multinational contractors. Exploring these topics and more, the contributors construct critical analysis from legal, cultural, media, community and government responses to the fire, asking whether, without remedy for multifaceted power and violence, we will ever really be 'after' Grenfell? With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi. With contributions from Phil Scraton, Daniel Renwick, Nadine El-Enany, Sarah Keenan, Gracie Mae Bradley and The Radical Housing Network.

This first volume of the Official History studies the background to privatisation, and the privatisations of the first two Conservative Governments led by Margaret Thatcher from May 1979 to June 1987. First commissioned by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair as an authoritative history, this volume addresses a number of key questions:

• To what extent was privatisation a clear policy commitment within the Thatcher Governments of the 1980s - or did Government simply stumble on the idea?
• Why were particular public corporations sold early in the 1980s and other sales delayed until well into the 1990s?
• What were the privatisation objectives and how did they change over time, if at all?
• How was each privatisation planned and executed, how were different City advisers appointed and remunerated, what precise roles did they play?
• How was each privatisation administered; in what ways did the methods evolve and change and why? How were sale prices determined?
• Which government departments took the lead role; what was the input of the Treasury and Bank of England; and what was the relationship between Ministers and civil servants?

The study draws heavily from the official records of the British Government to which the author was given full access and from interviews with leading figures involved in each of the privatisations including ex-Ministers, civil servants, business and City figures, as well as academics that have studied the subject. This new official history will be of much interest to students of British political history, economics and business studies.

Providing an in-depth case study of a highly successful public-private partnership, this book offers valuable insights for privatizing an existing public service. A mix of theory and empirical analysis, the study initially creates and explains a model for the Privatization Transfer Process, which serves as a guide for contracting out services. Drawing on the experience of the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority when it privatized toll road operations, the book traces the steps taken through the initial decision to privatize, the creation of the Request for Proposal, and the review and rating of three bidder responses. It then follows the awarding of the bid to the Florida Toll Services and the transition from public to private control.

The book also considers technical and pricing concerns as well as issues pertaining to contract management. In conclusion, it evaluates the entire effort. By offering a detailed analysis of a very successful privatization experience, the book provides a useful tool for those concerned with privatization issues.

In today's world of interconnected and "always-on" information, companies that succeed are those that compete by leveraging strategic control points. A strategic control point is a part of a market that, if controlled by one party, can be used to leverage power elsewhere. This can occur throughout the supply chain, in a related business, or even in an unrelated market The Carrot and the Stick uses detailed examples and case studies - ranging from historic cases like Vanderbilt's railroad in New York to current cases like Amazon's control of the value chain - to explain how finding and leveraging points of strategic control can be the key to success in today's convergent, fast-paced markets. The book focuses on how to spot and own potential points of strategic control, how to extend them to multiple markets, what tools and processes can be implemented in order to utilize the principle in practice, and how to "pry loose" existing points of strategic control owned by others. Applicable to all industries, this book can help alter business outcomes.

Licence To Loot is a fast-paced, hard-hitting investigation into parastatal looting, written by journalist Stephan Hofstatter. At the centre of the story is Eskom, the largest power utility in Africa, which could determine the success or failure of South Africa’s economy.

Hofstatter’s story begins in 2016, with the Guptas’ controversial purchase of Optimum coal mine and Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe’s key role in the deal. From there it takes the reader on a journey from secret meetings in London hotel rooms to a clandestinely purchased bolthole on a Dubai golf estate, uncovering the corrupt acquisition of a private jet along the way. From the diary entries of a Saxonwold security guard to first-hand accounts of backroom dealmaking, it traces the origins of a shadowy network between the Guptas and Eskom that ultimately allowed the family to extract billions of rands from the parastatal.

Licence To Loot reveals the complicated deals and machinations underpinning state capture and the subsequent ministerial and board appointments that ceded the control of the country’s parastatals, including Eskom, Transnet, SAA and Denel, to Gupta-linked moneymen.

The book is particularly relevant in the current political climate as it focuses on the impact of state capture, not just its origins, and takes the story beyond the Zuma presidency.

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.

In recent years as globalization and market liberalization have marched forward unabated, and the global commons continue to be commodified and privatized at a rapid pace. In this global process, the ownership, sale and supply of water is increasingly the flashpoint for debates and conflict over privatization, and nowhere is the debate more advanced or acute than in southern Africa. The Age of Commodity provides an overview on the debates over water privatization including a conceptual overview of water 'privatization', how it relates to human rights, macro-economic policy and GATS and how the debates are shaped by research methodologies. The book then presents case studies of important water privatization initiatives in the region, drawing out crucial themes common to water privatization debates around the world including corruption, gender equity and donor conditionalities. This is book is powerful and necessary reading in our new age of commodity.

This book challenges readers to consider the consequences of commercialism and business influences on and in schools. Critical essays examine the central theme of commercialism via a unique multiplicity of real-world examples. Topics include:
*privatization of school food services;
*oil company ads that act as educational policy statements;
*a parent's view of his child's experiences in a school that encourages school-business partnerships;
*commercialization and school administration;
*teacher union involvement in the school-business partnership craze currently sweeping the nation;
*links between education policy and the military-industrial complex;
*commercialism in higher education, including marketing to high school students, intellectual property rights of professors and students, and the bind in which professional proprietary schools find themselves; and
*the influence of conservative think tanks on information citizens receive, especially concerning educational issues and policy.
"Schools or Markets?: Commercialism, Privatization, and School-Business Partnerships" is compelling reading for all researchers, faculty, students, and education professionals interested in the connections between public schools and private interests. The breadth and variety of topics addressed make it a uniquely relevant text for courses in social and cultural foundations of education, sociology of education, educational politics and policy, economics of education, philosophy of education, introduction to education, and cultural studies in education.

Essential services are being privatised the world over. Whether it's water, gas, electricity or the phone network, everywher from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Leeds in the UK is following the US economic model and handing public services over to private companies whose principal interest is raising prices. Yet it's one of the world's best kept secrets that Americans pay astonishingly little for high quality public services. Uniquely in the world, every aspect of US regulation is wide open to the public. How is this done and why has this process not taken root elsewhere? How is regulation threatened even in the United States? And what power does the public have to ensure that services are regulated along these US lines?;This volume, based on work for the United Nations International Labour Organisation, is a step-by-step guide to the way that public services are regulated in the United States. It explains how decisions are made by public debate in a public forum. Profits and investments of private companies are capped, and companies are forced to reduce prices for the poor, fund environmental investments and open themselves to financial inspection.