Public Versus Private Ownership
The Current State Of The Debate
Overview
Disappointment with insider trading in Russia, with voucher privatization in the Czech Republic, and with the privatization of infrastructure in many developing countries has spawned new critiques of privatization. How do theory and empirical evidence answer the much-debated questions, which is more important to performance, competition or private ownership? Are state enterprises more subject to welfare-reducing interventions by government than private firms are? Do state enterprises suffer more from problems of corporate governance?
