THE COSTS AND RETURNS OF THE PRIVATIZATION OF NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES

The sale of public sector industry has become a central plank of UK public policy. This paper concentrates upon the most contentious area of the opportunity cost of share sales. The nature of these costs is related to the revealed objectives of the policy, and the extent to which they differ from expected costs is identified. The nature of the benefits forecast for privatization is explod and questions posed concerning the balance of costs and benefits in current policy. Particular attention is paid to the distribution of returns on the share issues in privatized businesses and parallels are drawn with issues in the private sector.     

SOME ADVANTAGES OF AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTATION ANALYSIS: A STUDY OF AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY POLICY

Models of policy implementation have been characterized by a tension between 'bottom' and 'top-down' approaches to public sector management. In recent years, this literature moved into 'third generation' in attempting to unify implementation analysis. One recent approach at consolidating key elements of 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' literature has been provided by Soren Winter. This article applies Winter's model to two longitudinal studies of industry programmes in Australia. This analysis suggests that Winter's integrated approach to implementation addresses some of the weaknesses of commonly used rational-comprehensive models such as the Mazmanian and Sabatier framework. However, there are also some weaknesses in Winter's integrated model which implies an agenda for future implementation analysis.     

COMPETITIVE TENDERING IN THE NHS: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS' OF THE EARLY IMPLEMENTATION OF HC(83)18

Economic theory identifies circumstances where in-house production can be expected to be more efficient, in terms of the cost of production, than purchase from outside contractors. However, this efficiency advantage can also expect to be dissipated when in-house producers face no competition. The introduction of competitive tendering does not invalidate the case for in-house production; but significant cost savings can still be expected.
An in-depth analysis is made of six contracts put out to tender in the three hotel-type services. Markets for contracts were created, and open competition commonly brought about savings of one-third to two-thirds. Part of the cost saving was often achieved through a rationalization of services. Economic theory does not predict this result; but NHS management used the opportunities to introduce changes. Wage rates were usually cut and earnings fell by still more. Staff resignations and redundancies were common.     

RATIONAL POLITICIANS AND RATIONAL BUREAUCRATS IN WASHINGTON AND WHITEHALL

William Niskanen's theory of Bureaucracy and Representative Government predicts that the interaction of rational vote-maximizing politicians and rational budget-maximizing bureaucrats will lead to an oversupply of bureaucratic goods and services. The demand, supply and motivational components of this model are all shown to be flawed; and the oversupply conclusion therefore fails to follow. A revised model constructed from the elements that can be salvaged from this critique suggests that rational mission-committed politicians and bureaucrats join in a policy-making oligopoly, run internally on the basis of trust and externally on the manipulation of information. This leads to a skewing (rather than a simple oversupply) of bureaucratic goods and services. Some evidence suggests that this model fits British as well as American policy-making.