Public Enterprise: Retrospective Review and Prospective Theory

Abstract

Most of the literature on public enterprise seeks to set forth rules to gov-ern their creation andtheir pricing. This chapter starts by describing thecontours of this literature‚ but gives the bulk of its attention to exploringthe potential contributions that public choice theorizing might make toour understanding of the actual conduct of public enterprises‚ conductthat often varies from what the normative literatureprescribes.