Explain the Possible Advantages of Privatisation. (20 Marks)

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Privatisation is the selling of public sector assets to the private sector in order to introduce competition and improve market efficiency. One argument for privatisation is that private companies are incentivised by profit by cutting costs and producing more efficiently. If you work for a government run industry, managers do not usually share in any profits. However, in private firms managers will usually receive a share of the profits motivating them to work harder, and as they are interested in making profit they are more likely to cut business costs and aim to be more efficient. Since privatisation, companies such as BT, and British Airways have shown degrees of improved efficiency and higher profitability due to the competitiveness within their respective industries. It can also be noticed that vast improvements in technology have occurred due to investment in order to achieve these efficiency and profit increases. As efficiencies increase, firms are more willing to produce at a lower price, effectively shifting the supply curve to the right. This causes a reduction in the price from P1 to P2 and an increase in the equilibrium quantity from Q1 to Q2. Another possible advantage of privatisation is an increase in competition as the privatisation of state owned monopolies usually occurs at the same time as deregulation of the industry. The increase in competition can be the greatest incentive to improvements in efficiency. For example, there is now more competition in the telecom industry and suppliers are now investing in fibre-optic technology and improving the infrastructure via capital investment. However, privatisation doesn’t necessarily increase the level of competition; it depends on the market structure. For example there is currently no competition in tap water, however this is a widely debated area and we could see a change to this soon and
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