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Over the last twenty-five years, there has been an acceleration in the move from government regulation towards privatization. Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region is the first thoroughgoing account of the relative success of the different approaches to privatization as undertaken in Korea, China, Australia, and Japan.In most contexts, privatization is expected to yield greater efficiency and cost effectiveness while avoiding the corruption and bloated budgets of government regulation or monopoly control. But broad-scale privatization, if ill designed, has also yielded its share of difficulties in East Asia. Privatization sometimes has created a vacuum in corporate governance for some of the region's most important industries and in some cases merely reinstated the monopoly-like configurations. The papers presented in this book discuss the experiences of privatization in several industries, including railroad and telecom, corporate governance problems, accounting issues, and challenges for the future in East Asian countries.The first section is theoretical in nature and proposes boundaries among government protection, market freedom, and shareholder expectations. The second part is constituted by country case studies, beginning with an analysis of both the Korean financial crisis that followed its 1997 law to privatize large, public sector corporations and the new ways Korean corporations finance themselves. Following is an evaluation of China's approach to privatization, with an in-depth look at the financial transitions of companies slated for initial public offering.Providing provocative examples of the methods of privatization in the Asia-Pacific region specifically, these papers will be of huge import to any economist or policymaker interested in transposing those successes for their own region.
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Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region NBER–East Asia Seminar on Economics Volume 12 National Bureau of Economic Research Korea Development Institute Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research Tokyo Center for Economic Research Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Productivity Commission, Australia Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region Edited by Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London T I is professor at the Institute of Economic Research at Hitotsubashi University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. A O. K is first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Together they have edited the eleven previous volumes in the NBER-East Asia Seminar on Economics series; Krueger has also been the editor or coeditor of eight other books published by the Press. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2004 by the National Bureau of Economic Research All rights reserved. Published 2004 Printed in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0-226-38679-1 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data NBER-East Asia Seminar on Economics (12th : 2001 : Hong Kong, China) Governance, regulation, and privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region / edited by Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger. p. cm. — (NBER-East Asia seminar on economics ; v. 12) “This volume contains edited versions of papers presented at the NBER’s East Asia Seminar on Economics twelfth annual conference, held in Hong Kong, June 28–30, 2001”—Ackn. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-38679-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Privatization—East Asia. 2. Corporate governance—East Asia. 3. Trade regulation—East