1. Privatization  Prices
4/6/2019
Privatization  Prices
© Allen C. Goodman, 2014

2. Think of some of your own examples!
Privatization
Definition: Transfer production of government services to private firms.
Degrees of Public and Private Involvement
Case Choice Financing Production Example
Public Public Public Police
Public Public Private Trash
Public Private Private Sidewalks
Private Private Private Private Goods
Degrees of Public and Private Involvement
Case Choice Financing Production Example
Public Public Public Police
Public Public Private Trash
Public Private Private Sidewalks
Private Private Private Private Goods

3. How might privatization ↓ costs?
Lower labor costs
Lower wages?
Lower fringes?
Different production approaches
Different mixes of capital and/or labor?
Fewer or different political problems?
More R&D
More focused on lowering costs?

4. Why might it not work well?
Contracting issues.
How much competition is there in the supply sector? If there are monopolistic suppliers you may not get competitive bidding.
Specifying the amount or quality of services. What is “good” education? For example, how do you evaluate vouchers or charter schools.
Monitoring the services. How do you know they’re giving you what you contracted for?
Some of the same issues
occur in the public sector
provided publicly.

5. What gets privatized? Some is pretty obvious
Towing cars
Waste facilities
Athletic facilities
Driver training
Other stuff is less obvious, more controversial
Education
Fire protection

6. So, what seems to work?
Lower costs seem to come from lower wages or lower benefits.
Some have found that if there is more competition in provision, costs are lower, but that depends critically on there being competition.
If the competitors “carve up” the territory, then you won’t have competition, or lower costs.

7. Who pays for benefits? Start with no benefits.
Labor Market
Start with no benefits.
Demand
Supply
Suppose that they negotiate $2/hour in benefits. 2 W0
Benefits
Why?
Wages 2
Who pays? L0
Labor

8. User Charges
Economists like markets. With a market, those who want the good will pay for it; those who don’t, won’t.
Let’s look at parking at Wayne. Should it be free? After all you’ve spent a lot of tuition.
If it’s free, is someone subsidizing someone else?
If it’s free, are there any costs?

9. Good user charge model
Price
Let’s go back to the optimal level of public services.
MBS = MB to “society” – it’s good to have parking for guests who visit.
MBU = MB to users – those who park everyday. $
Why is it kinked?
MBU+MBS= MC
MBU MC
MBS Q*
Quantity

10. Good user charge model Let’s put in a couple of other benchmarks.
Price
Let’s put in a couple of other benchmarks.
At Q1, society’s needs are met. Anything more accrues solely to users.
If we charge 0 price, we’ll get a demand of Q2. $
MBU+MBS= MC
MBU MC
Efficiency
Loss
MBS Q* Q1 Q2
Quantity

11. Good user charge model We’ve seen MB*U and MB*S before.
Price
We’ve seen MB*U and MB*S before.
“Clearly” users should pay (MB*U/MC) fraction of the costs of the facility.
What does this tell us about potential user charges? $
MBU+MBS= MC
MBU MC
MB*U
MBS
MB*S Q* Q1 Q2
Quantity

12. Good user charge model
Price
Greater the fraction of MC that MBU are, the more attractive are user charges.
User-charge financing requires that we be able to identify users easily.
Efficiency case for user charges is stronger the more elastic is demand. Why? $
A> It’s all about
Quantity!
MBU+MBS= MC
MBU MC
MB*U
MBS
MB*S Q* Q1 Q2
Quantity

13. Good user charge model
Price
Marginal benefits, NOT total benefits, matter. Past Q1, all of the incremental benefits go to the users, as opposed to society. They should finance entirely ALL of the costs of facilities past Q1. $
MBU+MBS= MC
MBU MC
MB*U
MBS
MB*S Q* Q1 Q2
Quantity

14. 5520_l11_Priv_Prices
4/6/2019
4/6/2019
Three Kinds of Costs
Capital Costs – What does it cost to HAVE the facility? How do we pay for it?
Probably $/head, $/property, $/value of property.
Operating Costs – What does it cost to USE the facility? Some sort of user charge. Might it be 0?
Congestion Costs – What are congestion costs? How do we charge? 14

15. Prime Example – Highways
What are the MPC?
What are the MSC? $
MSC
D (5 pm)
D (5 am)
Why does demand differ at different times of the day?
What is the efficient price? Why?
MPC
Cars/hr.

16. Prime Example – Highways
People are valuing others’ time at 0. The price system is not working properly.
Appropriate congestion tax is t. $
MSC
D (5 pm)
D (5 am)
What are the impacts?
Gives drivers incentives to drive at less congested times.
Redistributes costs from non-users to users
Loss t
MPC
Cars/hr.

17. What do you do with tax Here, a tax is used to fix price system.
Think of a situation where you take the congestion taxes and use them to redistribute to everyone else.
So, the users are worse off … but the non-users, who were subsidizing them, are now better off … and
The price system is now giving the right scarcity signals.

18. Rich v. Poor Doesn’t this discriminate against the poor?
Suppose you have a bunch of people from Rochester Hills commuting down I-75 to downtown Detroit every day. Must be there by 8:30 am, so they plan to get there a little early. Some are “rich.” Others are “poor.”
Under a “come as you please” system, rich and poor come down randomly  congestion between 7:30 – 8:30.
Suppose a poor person who values time at $0.20/minute ($12.00/hour) arrives at 8:15 and a rich person who values time at $0.40/minute ($24.00/hour) arrives at 7:15. Total waiting time costs are
Poor 0.25 hr. * $12 = $3.00
Rich 1.25 hr. * $24 = $30.00
Total Cost is $33.00

19. Rich v. Poor If you SWAP places you get: Poor 1.25 hr. * $12 = $15.00
Rich 0.25 hr. * $24 = $ 6.00
Total Cost is $21.00!  Savings of $12.00
Suppose you put on a $10.00 toll between 7:30 am and 9:30 am. Poor will travel earlier to avoid the toll and rich will probably travel later.
The rich would be (30 – 6) – 10 = $14 better off.
The poor would be (3 – 15) = $12 worse off.
The rich could compensate the poor, even after paying the toll. You could actually use the toll to compensate them. This is usually a suitable condition for Pareto Optimality.

20. How do you collect tolls?
Have you ever been around Chicago.
They use the I-Pass.
Could vary by time of day – I don’t think that it does.
Could post it by time of day.