Are Public Enterprises Inefficient?: Viewpoints of Western Scholars

Autor/in	Fuqian, Fang
Titel	Are Public Enterprises Inefficient?: Viewpoints of Western Scholars
Quelle	In: Chinese Education and Society, 39 (2006) 5, S.83-90 (8 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1061-1932
DOI	10.2753/CED1061-1932390507
Schlagwörter	Privatization; Business; Administrators; Incentives; Efficiency; Free Enterprise System + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Privatisation; Privatisierung; Business studies; Wirtschaft; Betriebswirtschaft; Anreiz; Effectiveness; Effektivität; Wirkungsgrad; Freie Wirtschaft
Abstract	People who advocate the privatization of public enterprises generally maintain that these enterprises, compared with private enterprises, have the following shortcomings: (1) public enterprises do not produce in response to consumer needs; (2) they use too much capital on inefficient production; (3) production often experiences breakdowns and failures; and (4) they resist necessary changes and declare bankruptcy. This is called "public enterprise incompetence." It is believed that the reasons for these shortcomings are: (1) planned management is not as effective as the restraints of market requirements; (2) investments in and administration of public enterprises are not subject to the restraints or incentives of the pursuit of profits; (3) the employees of public enterprises take advantage of the organizations to do less work and get higher remuneration than what employers subject to market regularities can pay; and (4) the government will bail out public enterprises when they should be reformed or shut down in line with the rules of the market. Recently, however, the book "Public Goods, Public Enterprise, Public Choice," written by two Australian authors--Hugh Stretton and Lionel Orchard--and translated and published by the Economic Sciences Publishing House, questioned the view that "public enterprises are inefficient" and that "the way out for public enterprises lies in privatization." In this book, this viewpoint is analyzed from the following aspects, which are described in this article: (1) Public enterprises and private enterprises: Which are more efficient?; (2) Why do public enterprises sometimes overlook consumer preferences?; (3) Do public enterprises have weak incentive mechanisms?; and (4) Are governments obliged to maintain the existence of inefficient public enterprises? In the view of the authors, "on the whole, private enterprises have not shown themselves to be more efficient than public enterprises," and "in many industries, the public system maybe just as efficient as the private system." (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10