From Bureaucracy to Business Enterprise Legal and Policy Issues in the Transformation of Government Services Routledge Revivals Series

This title was first published in 2003.This book analyzes the policy initiatives used in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States to improve the efficiency of government service delivery, such as commercialization, privatization, and, in particular, corporatization. The book looks at how markets, corporate governance processes, and judicial and administrative reviews affect the efficiency and ethics of service delivery. The book crosses a number of academic disciplines - corporate law and governance, law and economics, public choice theory, ethics and public law and administration. It will also be of value to a range of professional constituencies - to those involved in governance functions in government and privatized corporations, to professionals servicing these organizations, and to officials administering government services. These issues are also highly pertinent to emerging economies where governance of public services is crucial to the transition to market democracy.

Contents: Introduction, Michael J. Whincop; Halfway house or revolving door? corporatization and political cycles in Western democracy, A.J. Brown; Governance of public corporations: profits and the public benefit, John Quiggin; Corporatization and the behaviour of government owned corporations, Stephen P. King; Comments on Quiggin and King, Allan Brown; The role of ministerial shareholders in the governance of government owned corporations, Michael J. Whincop; Virtual privatization: governance reforms for government owned firms, David A. Skeel, Jr; Comments on Whincop and Skeel, Bernard McCabe; A private-rights standing model to promote public-regarding behaviour by government owned corporations, Maxwell L. Stearns; Governance, liability, and immunity of government business enterprizes and their boards, Bryan Horrigan; Complaint resolution in government owned corporations and privatized utilities: some legal and constitutional conundrums, Spencer Zifcak; Comments on Stearns, Horrigan and Zifcak, Stephen Bottomley; Index.

Michael J. Whincop, Professor of Law, Law Faculty, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia