Margaret Thatcher used it to curb the power of the unions. Eastern European countries employed it later to dismantle command economies. Today, with public indebtedness at its highest peacetime level in advanced economies, the main rationale is to raise cash.
Taxpayers might think that the best family silver has already been sold, but plenty is still in the cupboard (see article). State-owned enterprises in OECD countries are worth around $2 trillion. Then there are minority stakes in companies, plus $2 trillion or so in utilities and other assets held by local governments. But the real treasures are “non-financial” assets—buildings, land, subsoil resources—which the IMF believes are worth three-quarters of GDP on average in rich economies: $35 trillion across the OECD.
Some of these assets could not or should not be sold. What price the Louvre, the Parthenon or Yellowstone National Park? Murky government accounting makes it impossible to know what portion of the total such treasures make up. But it is clear that the overall list includes thousands of marketable holdings with little or no heritage value.
[..] Governments seem strangely reluctant to exploit these revenue-raising opportunities. That is partly because privatisation always faces opposition. Particular sensitivities surround land, as Ronald Reagan discovered when his plan to sell swathes of America’s West were shot down by a coalition of greens and ranchers who enjoyed grazing rights, and as the British government found in 2010 when environmentalists scuppered its attempt to sell Forestry Commission land.
[...]There are ways of encouraging sales. Data collection on public property is shockingly poor. It is patchy even in Scandinavia, where governments pride themselves on their openness. Governments need to get a better idea of what they hold. Effective land registries, giving certainty to title, are essential: Greece’s registry remains a mess. Too many governments use a flaky form of “cash basis” accounting that obscures the costs of holding property. Too few produce proper balance-sheets. Better bean counting would make it easier to ascertain what might be better off in private hands.
Governments also need to sweat whatever remains in state hands. There is no single model for managing public assets, but any successful strategy would include setting private-sector-style financial benchmarks, replacing cronies with experienced managers and shielding them from political interference. Not only is this good in itself, but it can also lead naturally to privatisation. That was the case in Sweden a decade ago, when creating a professionally managed holding company for state assets revealed many to be non-core, leading to a selling splurge by a left-leaning government.
[...]Governments also need to learn from mistakes made in past waves of privatisation. Without robust regulation, sell-offs enrich insiders and lead to backlashes. That happened in Britain (over rail and utilities) and emerging markets (telecoms, banking and more). The Royal Mail sale was a reminder of the political risks: price an asset too high and the deal might flop; price it too low and the taxpayer feels cheated. Nevertheless, for governments that are serious about bringing their spending in line with revenues, privatisation is a useful tool. It allows governments to cut their debts and improve their credit ratings, thus reducing their outgoings, and it improves the economy’s efficiency by boosting competition and by applying private-sector capital and skills to newly privatised assets.
Fonte: aqui
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