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Incomplete Contracts and Public Ownership: Remarks, and an Application to Public-Private Partnerships

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  • Oliver Hart

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

The question of what should determine the boundaries between public and private firms in an advanced capitalist economy is a highly topical one. In this paper I discuss some recent theoretical thinking on this issue. I divide the paper into two parts. First, I make some general remarks about the relationship between the theoretical literature on privatisation and incomplete contracting theories of the firm. Second, I use some of the ideas from this literature to develop a very preliminary model of public-private partnerships. Copyright Royal Economic Society 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Hart, 2003. "Incomplete Contracts and Public Ownership: Remarks, and an Application to Public-Private Partnerships," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(486), pages 69-76, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:113:y:2003:i:486:p:c69-c76
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    1. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2001. "Government Versus Private Ownership of Public Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1343-1372.
    2. Pitchford, R. & King, S., 1998. "Private or Public? A Taxonomy of Optimal Ownership and Management Regimes," Papers 343, Australian National University - Department of Economics.
    3. Stephen King & Rohan Pitchford, 2008. "Private or Public? Towards a Taxonomy of Optimal Ownership and Management Regimes," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(266), pages 366-377, September.
    4. Grout, Paul A, 1997. "The Economics of the Private Finance Initiative," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 13(4), pages 53-66, Winter.
    5. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    6. Bennett, John & Iossa, Elisabetta, 2006. "Building and managing facilities for public services," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2143-2160, November.
    7. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

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