Public versus private ownership: Quantity contracts and the allocation of investment tasks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hoppe, Eva I.; Schmitz, Patrick W.
• 署名单位: University of Cologne; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.11.009
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 258-268
• 关键词: incomplete contracts; Contractible control; privatization

摘要

The government wants a certain good or service to be provided. Should the required assets be publicly or privately owned or should a partnership be formed? Building on the incomplete contracting approach, we argue that the initially specified quantity of an ex ante describable basic good can have important effects on investment incentives, which has been neglected in the literature so far. We also study how the tasks of investing in quality improvements and cost reductions should be assigned. We show how the optimal contracts and governance structures depend on the exogenous parameters of the model such as the nature of the investments and the parties' bargaining powers. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.