Privatization in rent-seeking societies

In: World development: the multi-disciplinary international journal devoted to the study and promotion of world development, Band 17, Heft 5, S. 673-682

Abstract

The experiences of Latin American countries, of Mexico and Chile in particular, demonstrate how important it may be to reform macroeconomic policies and open the economy to external competition before tackling the privatization of the public sector. The obstructive force of rent-seeking behavior is shown most clearly in the Argentine case, while the Brazilian experience is useful to remind that rent-seeking dynamics are not necessarily incompatible with structural transformation and growth