The issue of public versus private ownership turns on three questions: (1) does competition matter more than ownership? (2) are state enterprises are more subject to welfare reducing interventions by government than are private firms? And (3) do state enterprises suffer more from corporate governance problems than private firms? Even if the answers to these questions favors private ownership, we must still ask whether distortions in the process of privatization mean that privatized firms perform worse than state enterprises. Our review found greater ambiguity about the merits of private ownership and privatization in theory than in the empirical literature. Empirical research comparing private or privatized firms with a state owned counterfactual documented gains in most cases. JEL Codes: L32 Public Enterprises; L33 Boundaries of Public and Private Enterprise; Privatization; Contracting Out; D21 Firm Behavior; D23 Organizational Behavior; Transactions Costs; Property Rights; 3 1.

Summary and conclusions......................................................................................................... 12 Evolving regulation: trends and outcomes.............................................................................. 15 Regulatory reform in selected industries............................................................................. 15 Product market liberalisation and performance................................................................. 23

Abstract: In some industries, firms are able to choose who regulates them. There is a long debate over whether regulatory competition is beneficial or whether it leads to a “race for the bottom.” We introduce another aspect to this discussion. Regulators may desire a “quiet life”, taking actions intended to minimize the effort they spend on work. Using banking as an example, we test this “quiet life ” hypothesis against other explanations of regulatory behavior. Banks are able to switch among three options for a primary federal regulator: the OCC, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC. We examine why they switch and what the results of switches are. We find support for the hypothesis that competition among regulators has beneficial aspects. Regulators seem to specialize, offering banks that are changing strategy the ability to improve performance by switching regulators. There is also evidence that the ability to switch regulators allows banks to get away from an examiner that desires a quiet life. This is a revised version of the paper “Do Regulators Search for the Quiet Life? The Relationship Between Regulators and the Regulated in Banking. ” I would like to thank the

Economic Policy Reform at Stanford for thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this paper, and Maria Kasilag for logistical support. 21 Economic research has rather well documented the long-term benefits from improved resource allocation and efficiency that follow from trade reform. And, although causation remains an issue, research has shown strong and consistent correlation between trade reform and growth. Despite this evidence of improved incomes from trade reform, some policy makers are

In many countries throughout the world, regulators are struggling to determine whether and how to introduce competition into regulated industries. This essay examines the complexities involved in the liberalization process. While stressing the importance of case-specific analyses, this essay distinguishes liberalization policies that generally are procompetitive from corresponding anticompetitive liberalization policies.

For over a century, nations ’ telecommunications networks ─ whether privately or publicly owned ─ were established and maintained under monopoly regulatory regimes. In recent years, many nations have been transitioning from monopoly to competitive regimes and their telecommunications sectors are experiencing rapid rates of

This paper explores the differences, similarities and synergies between voluntary and binding approaches to international rules. Voluntary efforts to ensure that firms adhere to appropriate standards of business conduct have been an important recent development in international business. These efforts have included the publication of codes of conduct describing the nature of a firm’s commitments in such areas as environment, labour, product safety and bribery as well as implementation of specialised management systems designed to help firms honour these commitments. Yet, some NGOs and labour unions question the credibility of these efforts and wonder whether initiatives that do not have the force of law can ever be effective. This paper notes that all approaches to the social control of business organisations -- voluntary and legally binding -- have distinctive shortcomings. These include problems of: credibility arising from imperfect monitoring and enforcement; capture of the control machinery by vested interests; inertia and inflexibility. For this reason, the problem facing would-be designers of global rules is not to choose between voluntary and binding approaches, but to find a judicious combination of the two approaches that is well adapted to the control problem at hand.

The second draft ♦ What are the effects of institutional subversion on small business development, fiscal policies, economic growth, and firm performance? This paper provides an empirical investigation of institutional subversion in Russia’s regions. We develop a complete account of preferential treatments to the largest regional firms in texts of regional legislation during 1992-2000. The concentration of preferential treatments is used as a proxy for legislative subversion. Based on cross-section and panel data analysis, we find that regional institutional subversion has an adverse effect on small business growth, tax collection, social public spending, and federal tax arrears. Robustness of these results is verified by looking at a proxy for potential subversion based on size concentration in regional economies. The alternative approach produces similar results. Regional political influence generates substantial gains to firms both in the long and the short run. These firms exhibit faster growth in sales, market share, profitability, employment, and capital compared to their counterparts who are not politically connected. Yet, firms that exercise political influence have lower labor productivity.

Abstract not found

v CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 MORE IS LESS? REGULATION IN A RENT SEEKING WORLD 4 Introduction 4 The Model 6 Central Findings 13 Conclusion 23 3 DETERMINING THE RULES OF THE GAME: REGULATORY REGIME ADOPTION IN THE U.S. TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY 25 Introduction 25 A Simple Model of Regulatory Regime Adoption 28 The Empirical Model 43 Conclusion 58 4 THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF SCHOOL INPUTS: A PRODUCT OF MISSPECIFICATION? 61 Introduction 61 The Statistical Effects of Including Demand Variables 65 Meta-Reanalysis of the Education Production Function Literature 69 Estimating Production Functions: Sensitivity to Specification 78 Conclusion 97 5 CONCLUSION 100 iv page APPENDIX A PROOFS OF PROPOSITIONS IN CHAPTER 2 106 APPENDIX B EMPIRICAL STUDIES YIELDING DATA USED IN THE META ANALYSIS IN CHAPTER 4 110 REFERENCES 114 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 121 vi Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degre...