The Cambridge Handbook of Privatization

Avihay Dorfman, Alon Harel

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781108497145
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108751681
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Jurisprudence
• Index: Law

Some goods and services seem to be fundamentally public, such as legislation, criminal punishment, and fighting wars. By contrast, other functions, such as garbage collection, do not. This volume brings together prominent scholars from a range of academic fields - including law, economics, philosophy, and sociology - to address the core question of what makes a certain good or service fundamentally public and why. Sometimes, governments and other public entities are superior because they are more likely to get at the right decisions or follow fair procedures. In other instances, the provision of goods and services by public entities is intrinsically valuable. By analyzing the these answers, the authors also explore the nature of the state and its authority. This handbook explores influential arguments for and against privatization and also develops a number of key studies explaining, justifying, or challenging the legitimacy and the desirability of public provision of particular goods and services.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I On the Virtues of Public Provision (Agency-Based Approaches)
• Part II On the Virtues of Publicness as a Means to the Realization of Procedural Values (Process-Based Theories)
• Part III Outcome-Based Theories: On the Virtues and Vices of Public Provision as a Means to Promote Efficiency and Justice
• Index