Going Private

Jose Gomez-Ibanez; John R. Meyer

doi:10.5771/9780815715702

Summary

In the last decade many countries turned to private sources to provide services formerly offered by public agencies. Europeans, particularly the British and the French, were leaders in this movement. Developing countries also experimented extensively with privatization in the 1980s, with varying degrees of success. Because governments around the world are heavily involved in transportation, it is a natural focus of privatization experiments and in many ways has been at the cutting edge. Going Private examines the diverse privatization experiences of transportation services and facilities. Cases are drawn from the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Since almost every country has experimented to some degree with highway and bus privatization, the authors focus particularly on these services, although they also discuss urban rail transit and airports. Highways and buses, they explain, encompass all three of the most common and basic forms of privatization: the sale of an existing state-owned enterprise; use of private, rather than public, financing and management for new infrastructure development; and contracting out to private vendors public services previously provided by government employees. After thoroughly examining these services and discussing the motives for, and objections to, privatization, the authors look at the prospects for privatization in other sectors and industries. They assess those circumstances in which privatization is most likely to succeed and those in which it is most likely to fail, for political as well as economic reasons. The authors conclude that privatization involves many political and social as well as economic dimensions. Privatization is usually not simply a matter of efficiency improvements or capital augmentation but also involves such deeply imbedded societal concerns as equity, income transfers, environmental problems, and attitudes toward taxation and the role of government.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-3178-8
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1570-2
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 310
Product type: Book Titles

1. Cover No access
2. Contents No access
1. Varieties of Privatization No access
2. Motives and Objections No access
3. The Focus on Transportation No access
4. Overview No access
1. 1. The Importance of Urban Bus Services No access
  2. The Provision of Bus Services No access
  3. The Cycle of Private and Public Involvement No access
  4. Differences between Developing and Developed Cities No access
2. 1. Privatization with Fare Regulation No access
  2. Privatization with Fare Deregulation No access
  3. Privatization while Maintaining Subsidies No access
  4. Basic Lessons No access
3. 1. The Scope of Britain's Reform No access
  2. Competition No access
  3. Changes in Service, Costs, Fares, and Ridership No access
  4. Isolating the Effects of the Reforms No access
  5. Winners, Losers, and Lessons No access
4. 1. Transportation and the Private Sector No access
  2. The Results of Contracting Out No access
  3. Lessons and Contrasts: Britain versus the United States No access
  4. Summary No access
5. 1. The Importance of Competition No access
  2. Service Innovations versus Cost Cutting No access
  3. The Perils of Regulating Fares or Maintaining Subsidies No access
  4. The Limits of the Second Best No access
  5. Overall Assessment No access
1. 1. Toll Roads in Developed and Developing Countries No access
  2. Key Issues No access
  3. Economic Development and Highway Privatization No access
2. 1. The Development of the French Autoroutes No access
  2. The Development of Spain's Expressways No access
  3. The Merits of Toll Financing No access
  4. The Advantages of Private Concessionaires No access
3. 1. Southeast Asia No access
  2. Mexico's Private Toll Road Program No access
  3. Capital Markets and Regulatory Environments No access
4. 1. The Development of the U.S. Expressway System No access
  2. The Virginia and California Private Proposals No access
  3. The Problem of Financial Viability No access
  4. Are Private Roads Cheaper, Faster, or More Innovative? No access
  5. The Problems of Monopoly and Regulation No access
  6. Prospects and Opportunities No access
5. 1. The Problem of the Standardized Network No access
  2. Competitive and Regulatory Complications No access
  3. Prospects for Efficiency and Innovation No access
  4. Environmental and Equity Issues No access
  5. Economic Development and Highway Privatization No access
1. 1. Airport Ownership and Operation No access
  2. Privatization of the British Airports Authority No access
  3. Privatization Proposals in the United States No access
  4. Lessons No access
2. 1. Economic and Ownership Trends No access
  2. Boston's World Trade Center Monorail No access
  3. The Dulles Airport Connector No access
  4. The Orlando Maglev Demonstration Project No access
  5. The Problems of Private Rail Proposals No access
3. 1. Profitability and Economic Efficiency No access
  2. The Politics of Surpluses and Pricing No access
  3. The Politics of Losses No access
1. 1. Defining Success and Failure No access
  2. The Role of Competition No access
  3. Efficiency Gains versus Transfers No access
  4. The Disadvantages of Externalities No access
  5. Avoiding Subsidies and Surpluses No access
  6. Applying the Lessons More Broadly No access
  7. Some Concluding Observations No access
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2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
9. I No access
10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
15. O No access
16. P No access
17. R No access
18. S No access
19. T No access
20. U No access
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22. W No access
23. Y No access