Risk Allocation and Mitigation in Nigeria’s Privatisation Programme—A Case Study of Electric Power Sector Privatisation

Under the Nigerian privatisation programme, the issues of risk allocation and mitigation were never always properly handled. Historically, there had always been a tendency to dump all the project risks on the private sector partner without properly evaluating whether it was capable of managing them. Extant literature has shown that where the comparative advantages of parties to handle risks are not properly taken into consideration, the allocation of risk is unbalanced and the tendency for the project to run into difficulties and/or fail increases. This paper looks at the electric power sector privatisation, distilling how key project risks were handled under the exercise. This should be a good pointer as to whether the privatisation exercise would be a success in the long run.

Unpacking the patterns of corporate restructuring during China’s SOE reform

State-owned enterprises(SOEs)in China have undergone significant restructuring since the mid-1990s.To date,scholars have devoted considerable attention to the constraints upon and motives for corporate restructuring in China.Yet the majority of the existing studies treat restructuring as a simple ownership transfer from the state to non-state entities without considering the resulting ownership structure of the firm.Consequently,we know relatively little about why otherwise similar SOEs were restructured at different times and through different means.This study intends to fill this gap by examining the determinants of both the timing and the methods of restructuring in a unique longitudinal survey of 145 SOEs over an 11-year period.Using a competing-risks model,we demonstrate that political as well as economic factors determine the possibility,nature and speed of restructuring.In particular,we show that political constraints on employee retention increase the likelihood that a SOE will be restructured as shareholding as opposed to its ownership being directly transferred to private hands.These findings shed new light on the economic and political logic of corporate restructuring in China.

Upstream SOEs in the mixed-ownership reform

This article explores possible options of the upstream mixed-ownership reform with imperfect substitute products in a vertically related market composed of one upstream SOE and two downstream profit-maximising retailers.Its focus is not only on incorporating the issue of privatisation into a vertical market structure,but also on extending the traditional upstream–downstream competition model by allowing the active contribution of retailers to enhance values at different costs.It finds that in a vertically related market where retailers’effort matters,the socially optimal policy towards the upstream SOE is partial privatisation regardless what product differentiation is involved,but the specific degree of privatisation is negatively correlated to the level of effort costs.By contrast,in a vertically related market without retailers’effort,the government tends to choose full nationalisation of the firm.

International financialisation,developing countries and the contradictions of privatised Keynesianism

This paper contributes to the understanding of the impact of international financialisation on developing countries.It is generally understood that developing economies are part of the global financialisation process,as exporters of goods to‘debt-led’economies and as recipient of foreign capital inflows.This paper argues that a key process connecting these two aspects has been‘privatised Keynesianism’,the policy regime that sustained financialisation in advanced economies by promoting low interest rates and asset appreciation.A consequence of this regime is to induce pressure on global financial institutions to look for returns and profits in the developing world.Such a mechanism represents a fundamental connection between the developing countries and financialisation at the global level,beside the spread of financial liberalisation.In the post-crisis environment,this connection remains strong and has become even more dangerous for developing countries.