Corporate social responsibility and privatization policy in a mixed oligopoly

This article formulates a mixed oligopoly in which a public firm competes with two private firms that may adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR). We then determine the optimal privatization policy and find that, depending on CSR level and cost differences among firms, either nationalization or full privatization can be optimal. For identical cost functions, we also show the optimal degree of privatization is decreasing with the level of CSR if private firms are homogeneous, while it is non-monotone with the CSR level in a significant heterogeneity of objectives among the firms. Our analysis suggests that CSR activities that affect the magnitude of heterogeneity among firms are crucial in choosing an optimal privatization policy in a mixed oligopoly.