The restructuring of public services is critically re-examined in this paper. It is argued that the issue of public versus private ownership has been overemphasised, while an effective increase in efficiency can be obtained by introducing appropriate incentives for both public and business actors. Four main decision-making phases are identified: the protection to be guaranteed to socially-sensitive economic activities; the ways to finance them; the economic organisation of the industry and the actual production. The debate on the market structure in public service industries is then reinterpreted on the basis of the interactions among three main players: the users/citizens, the public operator and the supplier of the service. Rather than using a single policy instrument, namely privatisation, it is argued that public action should be informed by an array of organisational solutions.

Daniele Archibugi, Giuseppe Ciccarone, Mauro Marè, Bernardo Pizzetti, Flaminia Violati, in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 5/2000, pp. , DOI: