The Distributional Impact of Privatization in Developing Countries
Author(s)
Cook, Paul; Kirkpatrick, Colin
Abstract
Privatization, the change in ownership of an enterprise from the public to the private sector, has been a centerpiece of the market-oriented development strategies employed in developing countries over the past two decades. Most economists have evaluated privatization schemes on efficiency grounds alone, leaving distributional concerns to the political process. This article argues that the distributional impact of policy changes are of major concern to economists, and develops a political economy approach to examine the distributional impact of privatization in developing countries.
