New public management reform in European countries: The retreat of the state from telecommunication services

Carina Schmitt and Philipp B. Schuster

No 116, TranState Working Papers from University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State

Abstract: In the post war period, telecommunications - being services of 'general economic interest' - were initially managed by public administrative bodies in many Western European countries. With the rise of New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s, these bodies were often transformed into public corporations or joint stock companies. Following corporatisation, the provision and the management of these services of general economic interest was gradually transferred to private actors. This paper analyses whether privatisation, as part of NPM reforms, has benefited the consumer. We have, therefore, compiled data on privatisation in the telecommunication sector for 15 European countries from 1980 to 2006. The data set covers the corporatisation process, as well as the transfer of the service provision to the private sector. Three empirical findings stand out: first, the reform processes have differed widely from each other. Second, it's not just the transfer of ownership to the private sector that has ensured efficiency gains and increased consumer benefits; corporatisation has done this as well. Third, efficiency gains have been transferred to the consumer, especially at the beginning of the reform process.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/32777/1/626007127.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:sfb597:116

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in TranState Working Papers from University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().