Search

The purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamics of private sector employment in China in recent years and to provide insight into the effects private sector employment has had on internal variations in growth and development. Our findings indicate a divergence in employment sources in cities and the countryside, a growing spatial divide between areas that rely on state-owned enterprises for employment, and places where the private sector is an increasingly important employer. We conclude that private enterprises are essential drivers of prosperity in urban China but are less significant for employment or growth in rural areas.

We examine the optimal proportion of employee stocks in two kinds of duopoly markets: The first market includes two mixed‐ownership state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), and the second market includes one mixed‐ownership SOE and one private enterprise. We introduce the particularities of employee stock ownership plans in SOEs in China to the subjective function and cost function. We find that partial holding, full holding, or non‐holding can be optimal, and the optimal proportion depends on the types of rival firms, the efficiency gap in different kinds of shares, and employee behavioral tendencies. Moreover, the optimal proportion of employee stocks is subject to external institutional environment.

We examine whether government intervention plays an important role in determining corporate investment allocations and efficiency in China. We find the government tends to intervene to promote corporate investment in fixed assets, equity in other state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and natural resources including oil, natural gas, and mines, but reduces research and development (R&D) investment. However, the effects of government intervention on these investment allocations are primarily found in local SOEs rather than in central SOEs or in private enterprise. Government intervention also induces a crowding-out effect in natural resource investments of private firms, suggesting that government intervention distorts investment allocations and reduces investment efficiency.

Prior research into the adoption timing decision of organisations in relation to newly promulgated accounting standards has focused exclusively on public enterprises and used economic cost–benefit frameworks as a main method of analysis. The current study examines the impact of a broader range of factors, including cost–benefit considerations, on the adoption timing decision of private firms with respect to the new set of Canadian accounting standards for private enterprises released in 2009. These factors were organised into a coherent framework using the theory of planned behaviour. The survey findings reveal that several items related to attitudes towards the behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control play a significant role in managers’ adoption behaviour. This study provides relevant insights for private enterprise managers, financial statement users, standard setters and academics.

Private enterprise carries out the complex operations of cross-border logistics that are the lifeblood of global supply chains. Yet, the efficiency of these activities depends on government agencies that provide the logistics infrastructure for global trade. Thus, public–private partnerships (PPPs) play an important role in facilitating improvements in cross-border logistics. While private enterprise and the public sector are key stakeholders in the quality of cross-border logistics, research that examines PPPs in logistics management is relatively sparse. To address this gap, the current study aims to develop empirically based theoretical insights into the nature and role of PPPs in the context of cross-border logistics. The study employs a grounded-theory analysis of case study data collected at the U.S./Canadian border. Findings show that private enterprise collaborative capability and public interagency cooperation determine the performance of PPPs which, in turn, influence the quality of cross-border logistics.

This study continues the issue of Russian economic reform in the study by Quast and Locatelli (1997) and extends the same reform in many aspects. In this paper, an in-depth study is also made in the reform strategies and the business performance of Gazprom, Russia's natural gas company, as Russia tried to curtail its domestic political and economic problems by means of the organisational reform (privatisation) of Gazprom starting in 1993. This study discovered that Gazprom had truly been a private corporation before 2005; however, it became practically a state-run business after 2005. We further disclose that Gazprom's business performance after the reform did not come from the corporate organisational reform but rather resulted from the increase of natural gas prices and was irrelevant to the production capacity. Data in many aspects, such as the adoption of privatisation, liquefied natural gas, sole proprietorship, merger and the strategy of market diversification, are used in this study to sustain Gazprom's business performance after the reform. However, it is believed that the key factor of these changes was whether Russia's ruling party could really transform a state-run business into a private enterprise, as otherwise, any economic reform would be a transient happening for the Russian economy.

The objective of the conference on “Leadership, Altruism, and Social Organization” was to bring researchers together who were interested in exploring the functioning of the nonprofit sector. The conference and this special issue focus on three themes. First, what causes social and volunteer-based organizations to successfully compete against a private enterprise? Second, why do individuals or organizations take the lead in providing or securing provision of public goods? Third, what are the consequences of having altruistically motivated agents, and how can such motives be sustained?

We investigate a mixed duopoly where a state-owned public enterprise competes against a profit-maximising private enterprise. We analyse whether private leadership or public leadership is robust in the observable delay game. We find that private leadership is always risk dominant. We also investigate how ownership structure in a public firm affects the equilibrium distribution of roles. We find that the roles are as follows: (1) Cournot, when the degree of privatisation is low, (2) private leadership, when it is middle, (3) both private leadership and public leadership, when it is high. The result implies that private leadership is again more robust.

The relationship between government policy and economic development has been along-standing topic of academic research and policy debate. The government of a transitional economy plays an important role in the process of economic development. Over the past three decades, the Chinese economy has been growing very rapidly, in particular because of the rapid development of the private sector. However, the performance of private enterprises is still affected by government policies. In the present paper, we examine the changes in large Chinese private enterprises' performance during 2003–2006 and test the determinants of such changes. We conclude that the Chinese Government's discriminating policies against private enterprises are the main cause of the private sector's downturn.

Since the first successful haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) using cord blood from a sibling in 1988 and the establishment of the first public umbilical cord blood bank in New York Blood Center in 1992, umbilical cord blood banks have been instituted in many countries. Funding was received from regular blood banks, health councils, charity funds or commercial investments. The international medical society is indebted to the New York Blood Center for publishing their procedures and EuroCord for fighting a patent on cord blood processing. Although it is unknown how many cord blood samples are currently banked and have been transplanted worldwide, the figures of the international registration of World Marrow Donor Association (WHDA) show an increase of cord blood use, in addition to other sources of unrelated HSCT (Fig. 1). Cord blood for HSCT is, in addition to national/regional use, exchanged worldwide. Donor counselling, human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-typing, tests for transmittable diseases and product quality control requirements to comply with (inter)national [AABB, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, NetCord/ Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT)] standards are expensive, making storage of cord blood for unrelated allogeneic haematopoietic transplantation currently a loss-making activity, not particularly attractive for private enterprise. In the last years, hopes have been fueled that other stem cells in cord blood may be used for future repair of metabolic or degenerative diseases. Autologous or personal cord blood banking appeals to individual initiatives and private funding; money is desperately needed by allogeneic cord blood banks, and it would be much better if it could

Based on the case of Taizhou City in Zhejiang Province, the present paper investigates the mechanism of the interaction between the local government and private enterprise in the process of regional economic development. We identify the “Taizhou Model” as a model of institutional innovation and the development of private economy, which is private sector-induced and local government-promoted Indeed, the impact of such mechanisms has had a significant influence on the reforms and development of China s economic system.

Using an in-depth case study approach, this study investigates human resource management (HRM) practices in Chinese privately owned enterprises (POEs). While HRM practices in POEs are marketoriented, there is a lack of HR planning, commitment to training and development, and employee involvement and participation. The pragmatic HRM practices in POEs contribute to greater efficiency and rapid expansion of the private enterprise economy, but at the same time are associated with low employee job satisfaction, employees' organizational commitment, and their experience of disadvantages. These are issues that are all likely to cause labor disputes to occur. The findings of this study have significant implications for practitioners and further research. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Public–private partnerships are enjoying a global resurgence in popularity, but there is still much confusion around notions of partnership, what can be learned from our history with partnerships, and what is new about the partnership forms that are in vogue today. Looking at one particular family of public–private partnerships, the long-term infrastructure contract, this article argues that evaluations thus far point to contradictory results regarding their effectiveness. Despite their continuing popularity with governments, greater care is needed to strengthen future evaluations and conduct such assessments away from the policy cheerleaders.

Sommaire: Le mouvement de privatisation des prisons et des penitenciers a connu un developpement fdgurant dans les pays anglo-saxons de 1990 a 2000. Depuis, plu-sieurs administrations publiques, en particulier aux Etats-Unis, ont realise que les avantages escomptes et annonces par les grandes corporations du secteur prive n'etaient pas vraiment au rendez-vous, au point ou on parle actuellement de l'eclate-ment de la bulle de la privatisation. Le debat est aujourd'hui domine par les positions extremes de l'entreprise privee - qui continue a vanter ses etablissements - et des associations de defense de droits civiques et des syndicats, qui adoptent la position opposee. L'examen des recherches empiriques ayant ete faites a ce sujet revele que la majorite des etudes comparatives presentent des failles methodologiques importantes qui ne permitting pas d'asseoir la prise de decision sur des bases solides. Il importe donc d'agir avec prudence dans ce secteur fortement influence par des enjeux politiques, sociaux et communicationnels dont l'ampleur reste encore insoupconnee. Abstract: From 1990 to 2000, the trend towards the privatization of jails and penitentiaries in Anglo-Saxon countries grew very rapidly. Since then, several public administrations, particularly in the United States, have come to realize that the benefits anticipated by the big corporations in the sector never actually materialized; in fact, we now talk of the bursting of the privatization bubble. Today, the debate is dominated by the extreme positions taken by private enterprise, which continues to boast about its institutions, and by human and trade-union rights advocacy associations, which are adopting the opposite position. The review of empirical research on this topic indicates that most comparative studies have significant methodological flaws that undermine the foundations of the decision-making process. It is therefore important to act with caution in this sector, which is highly influenced by political, social and communicational issues, the magnitude of which is yet unknown.

The excess burden of taxation, which in the US is over $1 trillion, could be reduced by transferring responsibility for funding infrastructure to the private sector, with a corresponding cut in taxes. While governments may resist optimal taxation, private communities are induced to do so by competition. A promising approach to efficient funding of civic infrastructure is its transfer to private enterprise

As the most populous country in the world with a heavy reliance on public transit, China's public transit privatization has a global significance. China's post-Mao economic reform and establishment of market-oriented economy have stimulated its public transit privatization at a very fast pace. The largest Chinese cities have been spearheading the implementation of different privatization measures, such as granting franchises, company merger, company reorganization, public/private partnership, responsibility systems, and many others. All these privatization efforts have yielded preliminary successful results, even though some obstacles are encountered. In the future, new privatization-related laws are expected to be enacted, government functions and business functions would be further separated, privatizing other public transit services besides operation would take place, and some negative impacts associated with privatization would be mitigated.

Standard indicators of human capital endowment — like literacy, school enrollment ratios or years of schooling — suffer from a number of defects. They are crude. Mostly, they refer to input rather than output measures of human capital formation. Occasionally, they produce implausible effects. They are not robustly significant determinants of growth. Here, they are replaced by average intelligence. This variable consistently outperforms the other human capital indicators in spite of suffering from severe defects of its own. The immediate impact of institutional improvements, i.e., more government tolerance of private enterprise or economic freedom, on growth it is in the same order of magnitude as intelligence effects are. The senior author is responsible for picking a ‘politically incorrect’ topic, i.e., analyzing the impact of IQ or average intelligence. The junior author has done the data compilation and the computations.

Innovation as the driving force behind the economic growth of high-income countries has almost exclusively been researched for the private enterprise sector. Nonproft organizations as a growing sector also have to be assessed for their contribution. They are first grouped by their different outputs (proximity to public versus private good provision). Next, for each output group fields of activities are identified, which exhibit differences in management regimes and incentive structure. This leads to hypotheses (and some empirical evidence) on innovative behavior and on barriers to innovation. The result: Their potential for contributing is far from being fully used.

This paper argues that a significant adjustment process has taken place in Polish industry in the early stages of the market-oriented reforms. We analyse comprehensive data on two-digit and three-digit manufacturing industries, disaggregated by firm ownership and size. By focusing on a decomposition of labour productivity growth, we obtain results which suggest that structural determinants of the recovery have outweighed cyclical ones. With regard to firm ownership and economic performance, we find that the productive response of state enterprises has been markedly different from that of private firms, with the latter outperforming the former. Finally, our results indicate that size matters, at least among private firms, and our results provide mild evidence of increasing returns. JEL classification: D21, E63, P21.

tag=1 data=Privatisation in Australia: Understanding the Incentives in Public and Private Firms tag=2 data=King, Stephen%Pitchford, Rohan tag=3 data=The Austrlaian Economic Review, tag=4 data=31 tag=5 data=4 tag=7 data=313-328. tag=8 data=PRIVATE ENTERPRISE tag=9 data=PRIVATISATION%GOVERNMENT POLICY%PRISONS%AIRPORTS%TELSTRA%WATER%GAS%AMBULANCE SERVICE%TOXIC WASTE tag=10 data='We consider the possible pitfalls of corporatisation policy, and argue the corporatised entities may operate to improve the appearance of success at the expense of reality.'

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, independence came to the Baltic republics. The focus of this case study is on Ainars Kadish and his entrepreneurial efforts in bringing an abandoned greenhouse operation back to a productive and profitable state. Also discussed are the post-Soviet environment and the privatization process as carried out in Latvia. The case provides financial information to explore Ainars' alternatives: should he continue producing at the current facility or build a new greenhouse complex?

The nonprofit sector—neither private enterprise nor governmental—is growing rapidly, and not only in the United States. This article explores three questions about the sector, which includes large elements of such service industries as universities, hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers, museums, social services, and organizations promoting medical research, environmental protection, and the arts. These questions are: (a) Why is the nonprofit sector expanding worldwide?; (b) How is the growth of nonprofits affecting other parts of the economy?; and (c) What evidence is there that nonprofits make a difference, that they perform functions which private firms or government cannot perform? A major theme is that the sector's growth necessitates finding ways to increase revenues, and that has brought side effects, particularly as nonprofits have become more and more “commercial.” In the process, borders between the nonprofit and both the for-profit and public sectors are being crossed increasingly, and with consequences that often pose problems.

** A comparison of the essential characteristics of public and private enterprise against the background of agency theory shows that archetypal public enterprise is not an enterprise in the generally accepted legal and economic senses of that expression. If it is to be efficient, therefore, archetypal public enterprise must not be left dependent upon governance and monitoring systems appropriate to private enterprise but must, by means of an intimate and cooperative (and not an ‘arm's length') relationship between the principal (government) and the agent (management), be provided with precisely defined and quantified objectives that lead to an agreed measure of overall performance. The essay's conclusions are important because, inter alia, they shift the efficiency debate from property to governance.

This article looks at the place of government in the development of market economies. Using ideas from Adam Smith, and illustrations from Anglo-American economic history, it shows how government was deeply involved in creating the conditions for capitalism and in moulding a sustaining environment for private enterprise. Despite the claims of contemporary laissez-faire ideology to the contrary, the emergence and the maintenance of a capitalist economic system always depend, at least in part, on an effective state.

The Government's blueprint for rail privatisation offers scope for more competition and experimentation, and a progressive movement towards a freeing of the system, thereby minimising the likely disruption. It constitutes the art of the possible.

The Ethiopian Constitution of 1928 vests in the state ownership of all mineral resources. However, the mining code of 1944 recognized the right of individuals and private companies to explore for and develop those resources. The results were quite impressive; Ethiopia became a producer of gold, platinum, copper and other minerals. A revised mining code in 1971 further extended the rights of individuals and companies to develop the mineral resources of the country. In 1974, the newly established revolutionary government eliminated private ownership of mines and established instead state-owned mining companies to develop the mineral resources of the country. In time, the demand for government funding by other sectors of the economy left little for the mining sector and it went into decline. To correct that problem, the Government of Ethiopia in 1989 decided to again make private ownership in the mining sector legal. This paper describes some of the recent initiatives to open the mining sector to private enterprise.

Governments in developing countries will face increasingly serious problems in providing adequate shelter for the more than 25 million households that will be added to their urban populations by the end of this century A review of the magnitude of their housing deficits discloses the growing need for low-cost shelter. Public housing, sites-and-services, slum upgrading, and government assisted self-help-programs have failed to provide sufficient housing to meet the needs of the poor. These must be supplemented by programs that reduce the costs of housing construction and increase the participation of communities, the informal sector, and private enterprise in providing low-cost housing. Analysis of the results of conventional government housing programs offers little hope of an adequate amelioration of the problem.

Since the National Institutes of Health first filed for patents on thousand fragments of human genes in 1992, many researchers are confronting difficult problems arising at the intersection of science, private enterprise, and the law. At present scientists understand the function of fewer than 1,500 human genes. Decoding all these genes in the goal of the Human Genome Project, sponsored by NIH and DOE. This paper discusses the complex practical, political, ethical, and economic issues involved in describing portions of DNA sequences and the patenting (and ownership) of those sequences.

Two hypotheses are presented on the basis of the consumerist and private enterprise points of view of technical development of household appliances: H1: maintaining or increasing sales of household appliances by product development can be done regardless of, or even conflicting with, consumer needs. H2: maintaining or increasing sales of household appliances can only be done by developing products that satisfy consumer needs. To test these hypotheses the concept of utility has to be defined operationally. Assuming that household appliances are bought to be used according to their functions, utility is defined as use frequency and way of using. Using data from a Norwegian survey on the purchase and use of electric ranges and sewing machines, it is shown that all equipment studied is used frequently and correctly by too many respondents to declare them generally without utility. But for each device there was quite a large share of the respondents who did not use it. The hypothesis that products cannot be sold to consumers who do not need them, is thus rejected. The causes of the problem as well as possible means of solving it are discussed.

As of 1976 over 225,000 acres were being irrigated by center pivot units in a five-county area of the Columbia Basin in Oregon and Washington. Most of the development took place since 1970. Dynamic application of center pivot technology altered the concept of irrigability in the study area, converting lands that were often rolling, sandy, and plagued by wind erosion from low grade grazing to productive irrigated units. This development was entirely by private enterprise, with large corporate farms accounting for much of the effort. Little prior comprehensive planning or coordination took place. When the circulation of water is altered on such a massive scale, however, unplanned impacts may be far reaching. In this case they include:1) acceleration of the shift to high cost thermoelectric generation, 2) alteration of state institutions designed to allocate water, and 3) possible significant alterations of the socioeconomic fabric of small rural service centers.

The real world is that of an increasingly competitive marketplace which espouses free trade but implements a wide variety of policies and practices in pursuit of industrial stimulation. The number and variety of such interventions are so great that the policy issue becomes not whether there should be a rationale for government aid but what that rationale should be. The acceptable rationale is that government support is valid if it recognizes and nourishes private enterprise as the engine of the economy. All industrial policies should be consciously and rigorously measured by this criterion. Other principles of industrial policy follow. Government “aid” should be redefined as an economic contract between government and industry. Such a contract should be limited in time, and be viewed in a sectoral context. At the end of the contract the company or sector should either survive based on market support or be allowed to fail. Current instruments and programs relating to industrial policy are fragmented and lack a strategic framework. The most significant institutional issue, however, is that of the proliferating crown corporations which inevitably restrict private operations. They should be time-limited, with plans at the outset to return the function performed to the private sector. Sommaire: Le monde, vu de facon realiste, est un marche de plus en plus competitif qui se veut libre tout en mettant en oeuvre une grande diversite de mechanismes politiques et pratiques dans le but de stimuler l'industrie. Le nombre et la variete de ces interventions sont tels que la question n'est plus de decider si l'aide gouver-nementale est justifiee, mais plutot d'en comprendre le fondement. Il est acceptable de considerer l'aide gouvernementale comme valable si elle reconnait et alimente l'industrie comme etant le moteur de 1'economie. C'est le critere qui devrait ere applique sciemment et avec rigueur a toutes les politiques industrielles. D'autres principes de politique industrielle en decoulent. “L'aide” du gouvernement devrait etre redefinie comme representant un contrat entre le gouvernement et l'industrie. Ce contrat devrait ere limite dans le temps et envisage dans le contexte du secteur concerne A l‘echeance, la societe industrielle ou le secteur devrait pouvoir survivre avec la seule assistance du marche ou faire faillite. Les instrumeats et programmes actuels de politique industrielle sont fragmentes et manquent de cadre strategique. La questiori la plus grave du point de vue des institutions est, toritefois, celle de la proliferation des societes de 1e couronne qui restreignent inevitablement les operations privees. Elles devraient etre limitees daris le temps avec, des le debut. des plans pour rendre au sectenr prive la fonction qu'elles remplissent. “We made it with government assistance — what's so bad about that?— Lee Iacocca, chairman, Chrysler

Focusing upon the case of the Canada Development Corporation, this paper provides a critique of the joint stock company as an instrument of public policy. The corporation's performance is evaluated against three criteria which emerge from a review of the circumstances leading to the creation of the CDC, namely: contributing to diversified industrial development in Canada; establishing the joint stock company as an accepted medium of private/public cooperation in economic activity; and providing income returns to the government. The CDC'S failure as a governing instrument is attributed to the fact that, in resolving its anomolous status as neither clearly state enterprise nor clearly private enterprise, the corporation was forced to distance itself from its major shareholder (i.e., the state) in order to retain the support of the investment community. The analysis in the second part of the paper proceeds through three stages: a review of the circumstances in the creation of the Canada Development Investment Corporation (cdic); identification of its probable rble; and a comparison with two alternative models of the state holding company. While the CDIC is a more tractable governing instrument than was the CDC, the early pattern of the CDIC'S commercial activities suggests a dismal financial future. Sommaire: Cet article, qui etudie le cas de la Corporation de developpement du Canada, presente une critique de la societe en commandite en tant qu'instrument dapplication de la politique gouvernementale. Le rendement de la Corporation est evalue a partir des trois criteres suivants, qui decoulent de l'examen des circonstances ayant conduit a la creation de la CDC: contribuer a la diversification du developpement industriel au Canada; faire de la societA en commandite un moyen reconu de favoriser la cooperation entre les entreprises publiques et privees dans l'activiteeconomique; et fournir des revenus au gouvernement. L'echec de la CDC en tant qu'instrument de gouvernement est attribue au fait que, compte tenu de son statut ambigu dentreprise mi-publique mi-privee, la Corporation a ete contrainte a prendre ses distances vis-a-vis de son principal actionnaire (a savoir l'Etat), afin de conserver l'appui des investisseurs. L'analyse presentee dans la seconde partie de l'article se deroule en trois etapes: etude des circonstances ayant amene la creation de la CDIC, ou Corporation de developpement et d'investissement du Canada; identification de son role probable; et comparaison avec deux autres modeles possibles de societe H portefeuille controlee par I'Etat. Bien que la CDIC soit un instrument de gouvernement plus souple que ne l'etait la CDC, les premieres conclusions que I'on peut tirer au sujet de ses activites commerciales tont envisager I'avenir financier avec un profond pessimisme. (The) form of public organization significantly affects the policies they adopt and the kind of management they conduct. Any structure for making decisions encourages certain types of choice and discourages others (emphasis added). Annmarie Hauck Walsh, 1978.

Summary This research investigates the characteristics of 354 directors of Britain's largest companies. Three sections of independent variables were analysed: those relating to the economic environ; those relating to the domestic environ-family background and educational experiences; those relatinig to self-concept. Directors were categorized according to the econoinic performnance of their industries-GOGOs (industries in growth); YOYOs (industries in turbulence); and DODOs (industries in decline). Several differences emerged between the characteristics of directors and the economic success of their industries for which they were strategically influential. In the past decade, researchers in the field of strategic management have attempted to isolate those factors associated with variations in economic performance. These investigations have developed from two different positions-those from a product-market standpoint, and those which start with organizational formats. Recently, however, Hambrick and Mason (1983) have argued for a third approach; an emphasis upon the values and 'moulding' of those executives who comprise the top management team. It is suggested that the characteristics of this dominant coalition may predict, partially, performance outcomes. This paper adopts the approach of Hambrick and Mason and is based upon data from 354 executive directors of Britain's largest companies, by definition the corporate leaders of the U.K. private enterprise economy. By analysing the economic performance of their industrial and commercial sectors over the previous decade, directors were grouped into categories of growth, decline and turbulence. A review of theoretical and empirical contributions from the areas of strategic management, organizational behaviour and of leadership theory, established hypotheses within three main groups: the economic environ; the domestic environ-education and family background; and those relating to the leaders' self-concept.

Private enterprise techniques, working in conjunction with public initiative, provide the most viable solution—sometimes the only one—for the job of rebuilding cities. But it is necessary to provide for corporate profits to make the combination successful. Several cities have tried it.

The nationalised industries' performance was unsatisfactory during the 1970s. However the same can be said of much of the private sector. Poor management and low productivity are by no means confined to public enterprise and financial assistance, which has had such an adverse effect on the efficiency of the nationalised concerns, might-in the absence of public ownership-have been afforded to private firms in the way that it has abroad. Moreover, for many of the industries the alternative to state ownership is not competition under private ownership but private monopoly operating under public regulation. Hence many of the weaknesses which appear to spring from public ownership could be the result of monopoly. It is therefore a matter of judgement as to whether the ownership of the nationalised industries by the state helps to explain why they have, in general, performed so badly. In my latest book The Nationalised Industries: Policies and Performance since 1968 I concluded that public ownership has had a deleterious effect but this was at best no more than an informed opinion (and in an earlier survey of the industries, which covered the period up to 1968, I reached a different verdict).

Escalating legal confrontations between private enterprise and government over land use controls are raising the costs of land development and slowly eliminating the potentials for reasonably priced family housing. Equally important, these confrontations are beginning to have more and more of the negative aspects of public utility control processes without any of the associated benefits. Now would seem to be an ideal time in which to review the ''public utility'' approach to land use controls since it can offer many more benefits than current control systems, while balancing society's concerns and private developers' fair return objectives. 28 references.

SUMMARY The economic development of underdeveloped regions involves essentially the same question as that applicable to the development of any region or country using a private enterprise system: how and to what extent should government alter the market process? The belief that governments of underdeveloped regions should not be oblivious to the growth process is well accepted, relating broadly to the argument that if the private sector could have stimulated growth without help from government, it would have done so already. Our analysis shows that the growth theories which seek to bring government into the picture are tending to violate classical economic principles. Moreover, they often ignore the differences that exist between regions. Even the pump priming basis for developing depressed areas—which emphasizes the agglomerating economies that result from initial development—is revealed to lack proper roots in fundamental theory. This paper finally contends that the main role of government in economic development is to facilitate economic activity, such as by eliminating predatory business practices, simplifying the tax base, establishing institutions conducive to entrepreneurship, and perhaps even influencing the saving-income proportions of the region.