Abstract
This chapter thoroughly examines issues associated with maximising public value for public commercial assets. It considers the overall scale of the opportunity for better management and the various ways to capture this value for the public that can go wrong, including through selling assets too cheaply, failing to deliver the services required of public assets, or the pitfalls of state capitalism. The focus is on economically efficient outcomes rather than on political ideology.
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Notes
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Transition cost estimates for a net zero transition by 2050 by McKinsey & Company (2022) include both mitigation costs and adaptation costs. It is an estimate of not public or fiscal costs but the additional capital spending required to achieve net zero by 2050. This estimates capital spending on physical assets for energy and land-use systems in the net-zero transition between 2021 and 2050 would amount to about USD 275 trillion, or USD 9.2 trillion per year on average, an annual increase of as much as USD 3.5 trillion from today. The Net Zero 2050 scenario of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has an even chance of limiting global worming to 1.5˚C. It assumes emissions are cut by about half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. USD 3.5 trillion is 3.5% of 2022 GDP.
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Ball, I., Buiter, W., Crompton, J., Detter, D., Soll, J. (2024). What Should Governments Do with Public Commercial Assets?. In: Public Net Worth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44343-5_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44343-5_15
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