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12. Economic Transformation and Privatization
- Author:
- Richard J. Hunter Jr. and Leo V. Ryan
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
- Institution:
- Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
- Abstract:
- In its simplest form, privatization is de-statism – that is, removing the state as the owner of property and assets. From the outset of the transformation process in Poland, significant systemic limitations to the privatization process existed1. A developed market infrastructure was absent. Businesses that were being prepared for privatization lacked the ability to conduct market research, and advisory and consulting services were in short supply. Procedures and benchmarks for property valuation were almost non-existent. The financial infrastructure was immature and data on the profitability of firms being prepared for privatization was problematic. In addition, both the quality and level of competency of civil servants (the nomenklatura) and private managers remained low-largely due to the negative legacy of Poland’s communist past.
- Topic:
- Economics, Privatization, Governance, and Economic Transformation
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Poland
13. Private Equity Buyouts in Healthcare: Who Wins, Who Loses?
- Author:
- Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- Private equity firms have become major players in the healthcare industry. How has this happened and what are the results? What is private equity’s ‘value proposition’ to the industry and to the American people -- at a time when healthcare is under constant pressure to cut costs and prices? How can PE firms use their classic leveraged buyout model to ‘save healthcare’ while delivering ‘outsized returns’ to investors? In this paper, we bring together a wide range of sources and empirical evidence to answer these questions. Given the complexity of the sector, we focus on four segments where private equity firms have been particularly active: hospitals, outpatient care (urgent care and ambulatory surgery centers), physician staffing and emergency room services (surprise medical billing), and revenue cycle management (medical debt collecting). In each of these segments, private equity has taken the lead in consolidating small providers, loading them with debt, and rolling them up into large powerhouses with substantial market power before exiting with handsome returns.
- Topic:
- Economics, Privatization, Health Care Policy, Health Insurance, and Private Equity
- Political Geography:
- United States
14. China’s Private Military and Security Companies: “Chinese Muscle” and the Reasons for U.S. Engagement
- Author:
- Christopher Spearin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- On 7 February 2019, General Thomas Waldhauser, then-Commander of United States Africa Command, stated the following during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee: “The Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle.” “Chinese money” is evident in the fact that since 2009, China has been Africa’s largest trading partner.
- Topic:
- Privatization, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Strategic Competition
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
15. Conflict and Cooperation in the Eastern Nile: The Role of Business
- Author:
- Rawia Tawfik
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Social Science Research Council
- Abstract:
- The discussion of the role of business in resource-based conflicts in Afri- ca in general and the Nile basin in particular, has been dominated by two approaches. The first approach emphasizes the role of business in exacer- bating domestic and transboundary conflicts by engaging in land and wa- ter grabs.1 In the Nile basin, large-scale land acquisitions by foreign cor- porations have often been considered as a means of exploiting land and water resources, and a factor that increases uncertainty and complexity in hydropolitical relations in the basin.2 This investigation of foreign invest- ments can be linked to a broader literature on promoting good governance of natural resources. This literature focuses on increasing transparency and accountability of all stakeholders, including non-state actors involved in the use of natural resources and ensuring the sustainable management of these resources.3 In contrast, the second approach, which focuses more on transboundary business cooperation, argues that economic cooperation, not only between state actors, but also between corporations could de-escalate conflicts over shared water resources. According to this approach, the private sector can act as ‘an agent of change’ by creating shared interests across borders and engaging in confidence-building activities.4 International organizations and funding institutions have supported multi-stakeholder forums to strength- en transnational cooperation between non-state actors and pushed for public-private partnerships to implement projects at transboundary levels.5 In the Nile basin, inter-riparian investments have been suggested as a po- tential means of reducing tensions through trading virtual water (i.e. the volume of water used in the production of commodities, goods, or services) from water-rich upstream countries, especially Ethiopia to water-scarce downstream countries, especially Egypt.6 It has been suggested that the more Egypt invests in upstream countries (and Sudan) for domestic agri- cultural production, the less likely it would resort to military means against these countries to secure access to the Nile waters to feed its own popula- tion. This assumption indicates that while inter-riparian investments may increase conflict within receiving countries, it may reduce conflicts between these countries.7 This paper contributes to this debate by examining the actual roles played by Egyptian businesses in the hydro-political and hydro-economic relations between the three Eastern Nile countries and the factors that affect these roles. It argues that the two approaches criticizing business's contribution to conflict or applauding its contribution to cooperation have not adequately captured the complexity and variety of roles played by business. It also does not adequately summarize the possible contradictory impacts of these roles on conflict and cooperation between riparian states. These approaches also downplay the impact of state-business relations and of the basin context, especially the history of hydro-political relations, on these roles. The paper will also address four main questions: what are the motivations of Egyptian businesses investing in Ethiopia and Sudan? To what extent do tensions over the utilization of the Nile waters factor into risk assessment of investments in the two countries? What roles do Egyptian public and pri- vate corporations play in promoting economic cooperation and reducing the potential of conflict, or increasing tensions between Egypt on the one hand, and Ethiopia and Sudan on the other hand? What factors affect these roles and how? And how can the business community better contribute to reduc- ing tensions over the utilization of water resources and promoting wider economic cooperation between Eastern Nile countries?
- Topic:
- Privatization, Water, Business, Conflict, and Private Sector
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt
16. The Privatization and Financialisation of Social Care in the UK
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
- Abstract:
- Even before the arrival of COVID-19, the care sector was already in long-term crisis, in large part due to insufficient funding, but the sector has also been under pressure from structural changes resulting from privatisation and financialisation.3 Social care is one of many elements of everyday life which, over the past few decades, have been repackaged to suit the needs of global capital. The process has transformed a social need into a financial issue which in turn translates into new social relations where narratives are constructed in terms of markets and efficiency. Care sector workers are treated as a financial overhead rather than integral to the quality of care provided. The financialisation of social care is an ongoing systemic process, which is accentuated in the increasingly challenging current global investment climate as investors seek alternatives to the low returns from traditional secure investments such as government bonds. This paper is concerned with the tensions resulting in the private provision of social care services. Some of the larger care providers are owned by financial investors that have earned substantial profits via opaque corporate practices. Discussion in the paper shows that while social care offers relatively low risk and high return investment opportunities, structuring care services as a private sector endeavour risks major adverse social outcomes, potentially resulting in: Extensive transfers to the world’s richest via the servicing of basic needs for some of society’s most vulnerable people, financed by taxes and lifetimes’ savings A two tier system of residential care where private providers seek to serve only self-funders Increasing strain on a largely female and minority ethnic un-unionised work force Increasing pressures on (largely female) informal carers that pick up the pieces of the failings in the care system In the inequitable practices of social care providers. However, the paper demonstrates that in the long term, tweaking the margins of regulation will not be sufficient to address the fundamental structural flaws underlying our current care system. Social care services are not competitive and the sector does not work as a conventional market. The analysis acknowledges the complexities of restructuring the care system and therefore offers both short and long term policy suggestions: • Conditions for financial support to the sector in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic should be imposed to curtail the current extractive practices of some care providers. Tighter regulation should promote socially responsible care provision, backed up with additional financial resources and long-term political commitment. • Additional financial support is needed for local authorities to enable them to provide social care and reduce their reliance on private companies. • Consideration should be given to innovative alternative provider models that draw on international examples of good practice. The current structure of social care provision inevitably promotes inequality, while transparency and accountability are lacking. Moreover, the care system is increasingly moulded to suit the priorities of investors rather than social care needs. In the wake of the pandemic, more resources are urgently needed for social care but this is an opportunity for a radical rethink of the ways in which we support the most vulnerable in our society.
- Topic:
- Privatization, Governance, Finance, Welfare, and Social Services
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom and Europe
17. Countering terrorism in the shadows: The role of private security and military companies
- Author:
- Iveta Hlouchova
- Publication Date:
- 12-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Security and Defence Quarterly
- Institution:
- War Studies University
- Abstract:
- The article identifies the main features of the PSMCs’ involvement in counterterrorism operations and outlines what their future involvement might look like with its implications for international peace and security. The main methods used to gather data and to draw inferences are a content analysis of relevant primary and secondary sources, and a discourse analysis, used as a method of examining the prevailing discourse surrounding the activities of PSMCs, seeking to understand the level of transparency, accountability and attributability of these actors. So far, the PSMCs’ potential for counterterrorism has not been fully exploited. There are many challenges surrounding the existence and operations of PSMCs, mainly lack of transparency and accountability, the continuous significance of the plausible deniability and political expediency PSMCs provide to nation governments, and an insufficient and inadequate international regulatory and control framework with no sanction or enforcement mechanisms. Most recently, the tendency to re-legitimise PSMCs’ activities can be identified. There will most probably be an expansion of PSMCs’ activities in the near future, as climate change consolidates security as a commodity, not a right. Therefore, there is a renewed urgency for adequate and effective international regulatory and control mechanisms on their activities on the international level.
- Topic:
- Security, Privatization, Counter-terrorism, Regulation, and Proxy War
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
18. Privatization and the Postsocialist Fertility Decline
- Author:
- Gabor Scheiring, Bryant Hui, Darja Irdam, Aytalina Azarova, and Eva Fodor
- Publication Date:
- 12-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Abstract:
- In this article, we analyze the privatization of companies as a potential but so far neglected factor behind the postsocialist fertility decline. We test this hypothesis using a novel database comprising information on the demographic and enterprise trajectories of 52 Hungarian towns between 1989-2006 and a cross-country dataset of 28 countries in Eastern Europe. We fit fixed and random-effects models adjusting for potential confounding factors and control for time-variant factors and common trends. We find that privatization is significantly associated with fertility decline, explaining approximately half of the overall fertility decline across the 52 towns and the 28 countries.
- Topic:
- Privatization, Capitalism, Post-Socialist Economies, and Fertility
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Hungary