IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/891.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Privatization and local government reform in Germany: A slow train

Author

Listed:
  • Schmidt, Klaus-Dieter

Abstract

The paper investigates the recent trends in privatization by local government organizations in Germany. It comes to the conclusion that the privatization policy has been two-directional: on the one hand, municipalities have reduced their economic activities, mainly by different forms of contracting out; on the other hand, they have expanded them into profitable fields. In many cases they have preferred a phantom privatization: government bodies have only been transferred into a private-law establishment. The paper examines the barriers to privatization and provides a strategy to overcome them.

Suggested Citation

  • Schmidt, Klaus-Dieter, 1998. "Privatization and local government reform in Germany: A slow train," Kiel Working Papers 891, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:891
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/46904/1/258375361.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R, 1980. "The Relative Efficiency of Public and Private Firms in a Competitive Environment: The Case of Canadian Railroads," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 958-976, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    2. David H. Good, 1992. "Productive Efficiency and Contract Management: Some Evidence From Public Transit Agencies," Public Finance Review, , vol. 20(2), pages 195-215, April.
    3. Yarmukhamedov, Sherzod & Smith, Andrew S.J. & Thiebaud, Jean-Christophe, 2020. "Competitive tendering, ownership and cost efficiency in road maintenance services in Sweden: A panel data analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 194-204.
    4. Jason Coupet & Abagail McWilliams, 2017. "Integrating Organizational Economics and Resource Dependence Theory to Explain the Persistence of Quasi Markets," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-13, August.
    5. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    6. Sanghamitra Das & Kala Krishna & Sergey Lychagin & Rohini Somanathan, 2013. "Back on the Rails: Competition and Productivity in State-Owned Industry," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 136-162, January.
    7. González de la Fe, Pedro, 1998. "Las cuentas de las privatizaciones: el caso de Seat," DEE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía de la Empresa. DB 6398, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.
    8. Luisa Affuso & Alvaro Angeriz & Michael Pollitt, 2009. "The Impact of Privatisation on the Efficiency of Train Operation in Britain," Working Papers 28, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    9. J. David Brown & John S. Earle & Solomiya Shpak & Volodymyr Vakhitov, 2019. "Is Privatization Working in Ukraine?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 61(1), pages 1-35, March.
    10. Bogart, Dan & Chaudhary, Latika, 2015. "Off the rails: Is state ownership bad for productivity?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 997-1013.
    11. Ian Keay & Kris Inwood, 2006. "Assessing Economic Performance Among North American Manufacturing Establishments, 1870/71: Data, Methodology And Measurement Issues," Working Paper 1030, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    12. Andrea Boitani & Marcella Nicolini & Carlo Scarpa, 2013. "Do competition and ownership matter? Evidence from local public transport in Europe," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(11), pages 1419-1434, April.
    13. John E. Kwoka, 2005. "The comparative advantage of public ownership: evidence from U.S. electric utilities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 622-640, May.
    14. Ghosh, Madanmohan & Whalley, John, 2008. "State owned enterprises, shirking and trade liberalization," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1206-1215, November.
    15. Mohammed Omran, 2008. "The Performance of State-Owned Enterprises and Newly Privatized Firms: Does Privatization Really Matter?," Chapters, in: José María Fanelli & Lyn Squire (ed.), Economic Reform in Developing Countries, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Sanghamitra Das & Kala M. Krishna & Sergey Lychagin & Rohini Somanathan, 2011. "Lifting the Veil: The Face of TFP in an Indian Rail Mill," CESifo Working Paper Series 3515, CESifo.
    17. Carlos Pestana Barros & António Gomes de Menezes & Jos頠 Cabral Vieira, 2013. "Measurement of hospital efficiency, using a latent class stochastic frontier model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 47-54, January.
    18. Cristina Gaio & Inês Pinto & Luís Rodrigues, 2016. "Are State-Owned Firms Less Profitable Than Non-State-Owned Firms? European Evidence," Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, vol. 21(1), pages 3-24.
    19. Michael G. Kirby & Robert P. Albon, 1985. "Property Rights, Regulation and Efficiency: A Further Comment on Australia's Two‐Airline Policy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 61(2), pages 535-539, June.
    20. Ronald Teeples & Susan Feigenbaum & David Glyer, 1986. "Public versus Private Water Delivery: Cost Comparisons," Public Finance Review, , vol. 14(3), pages 351-366, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:891. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.