Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/142644 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
EERI Research Paper Series No. 15/2012
Publisher: 
Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels
Abstract: 
This paper reconsiders the literature on the irrelevance of privatization in mixed markets, addressing both quantity and price competition in a duopoly with differentiated products. By allowing for partially privatizing a state-controlled firm, we explore competition under different timings of firms’ moves and derive the conditions under which an optimal subsidy allows to achieve maximum efficiency. We show that, while the ownership of the controlled firm is irrelevant when firms play simultaneously, it matters when firms compete sequentially, requiring the leader to be publicly-owned for an optimal subsidy to restore the first-best allocation, irrespective of the mode of competition. The paper also focuses on the extent to which a subsidy is needed to attain the social optimum, highlighting the equivalence between a price (quantity) game with public leadership or simultaneous moves and a quantity (price) game with private leadership.
Subjects: 
Cournot
Bertrand
privatization
optimal subsidy
JEL: 
H21
H44
L13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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