A Book: The Case for Privatization

Myths and Reality - Edited by Alberto Chong and Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes
Stanford University Press

In Argentina, president Nestor Kirchner seems happy to see a major private foreign company (France-based Suez) leave after investing millions of dollars in a privatized water company. In Bolivia, president Evo Morales is preparing to denationalize several privatized companies and increase state ownership in the key eneregy sector. And in Venezuela, president Hugo Chavez is not only seizing private property, but building a whole array of new state companies aimed at competing with the private sector on everything from technology to aviation.

Does this mean the end of privatization, the concept that swept Latin America with such fervor in the 1990's?

It shouldn't, at least not based on the historic evidence of its success or failure in the region, argues a group of well-respected economists in Privatizion in Latin America: Myths and Reality. The book looks at the performance of state companies before and after privatization in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru.
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