Suchergebnisse

This book provides an overview of the economic issues that are involved in the privatisation of firms, previously under public control. Combining a theoretical framework with case studies it asks which allocation mechanism can a government adopt and how will the choice of allocation mechanism affect future market outcomes?

In many countries all over the world, governments are privatising firms that were previously under public control. This is happening, for example, in public utility sectors such as gas, water and electricity, in transport sectors (such as rail and metro) and in radio and telephony. This book provides an overview of the economic issues that are involved in this transfer of ownership of public assets. Combining a theoretical framework with a set of case studies of recent sales of state-owned assets from Europe and the USA, it asks which sort of allocation mechanism can a government adopt? Which is most suited to a particular sale? And how will the choice of allocation mechanism affect future market outcomes? With contributions from international experts, this book offers an accessible introduction to auction theory and an invaluable, non-technical analysis of existing knowledge. It will be of interest to students, non-specialists and policy-makers alike

AbstractWe show that in search markets an influencer who recommends a product to her followers improves consumer surplus and total welfare despite the firm paying for her recommendation. As consumers learn their value for the product upon search, they will not buy at the recommended firm if they learn their value is low. The threat of search incentivizes firms to offer the influencer a financial contract involving a commission and incentivizes the influencer to be honest in her recommendation. Provided the influencer's search cost is not too high, she also has an incentive to acquire information and give informative recommendations. These informative equilibria are more difficult to sustain if influencers compete with each other.