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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.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of high school seniors compete in
a game they'll play only once, whose rules they do not fully
understand, yet whose consequences are enormous. The game is
college admissions, and applying early to an elite school is one
way to win. But the early admissions process is enigmatic and
flawed. It can easily lead students toward hasty or misinformed
decisions. This book-based on the careful examination of more than
500,000 college applications to fourteen elite colleges and
hundreds of interviews with students, counselors, and admissions
officers-provides an extraordinarily thorough analysis of early
admissions. In clear language it details the advantages and
pitfalls of applying early as it provides a map for students and
parents to navigate the process. Unlike college admissions guides,
The Early Admissions Game reveals the realities of early
applications, how they work and what effects they have. The authors
frankly assess early applications. Applying early is not for
everyone, but it will improve-sometimes double, even triple-the
chances of being admitted to a prestigious college. An early
decision program can greatly enhance a college's reputation by
skewing statistics, such as selectivity, average SAT scores, or
percentage of admitted applicants who matriculate. But these gains
come at the expense of distorting applicants' decisions and
providing disparate treatment of students who apply early and
regular admissions. The system, in short, is unfair, and the
authors make recommendations for improvement. The Early Admissions
Game is sure to be the definitive work on the subject. It is must
reading for admissions officers, guidance counselors, and high
school seniors and their parents.
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