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Arguments on Privatization

  • Conference paper
A Supply-Side Agenda for Germany

Abstract

Large-scale privatization of public firms changes the distribution of power within an economy. Therefore, the primary reasons for privatization are ideological in nature: political power of entrenched bureaucracies and of labor unions is reduced; more widespread ownership of shares, in particular by people of modest means, is strived for.

Economic reasoning has to emphasize the allocational tradeoff between higher efficiency, lower quality, and monopolistic or oligopolistic profits of the privatized firms. Adherents to traditional public enterprise economics will deplore the loss of the pursuit of distributional and stabilizational objectives, which results from privatization.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24-42, D-5300, Bonn, W. Germany

    Dieter Bös

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  1. Dieter Bös
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, Gustav-Heinemann-Ufer 84-88, D-5000, Köln 51, Germany

    Gerhard Fels (Direktor) (Direktor)

  2. Department of Economics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    George M. von Furstenberg (Rudy Professor) (Rudy Professor)

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© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin · Heidelberg

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Bös, D. (1989). Arguments on Privatization. In: Fels, G., von Furstenberg, G.M. (eds) A Supply-Side Agenda for Germany. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74277-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74277-4_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-74278-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-74277-4

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