First published in 1973, Efficiency Criteria for Nationalised Industries asks by what criteria we should judge the efficiency of nationalised industries, what we mean by saying they should be run commercially and where the public interest should lie. In this work, Professor Nove believes we answer these questions incorrectly due to a lack of understanding of economic theory and a desire to relate real world economics to that of the text book. The author says many economists, in a world of indivisibilities, complementarities and systems, persist in thinking in terms of one-dimensional, fragmented marginalism. Professor Nove, who is known for his writings on the Soviet economy, raises many points relevant to the East as well as the West. His work contributes to the economics of socialism, while also making the case for greater realism in economic theory in general.

First published in 1973, Efficiency Criteria for Nationalised Industries asks by what criteria we should judge the efficiency of nationalised industries, what we mean by saying they should be run commercially and where the public interest should lie. In this work, Professor Nove believes we answer these questions incorrectly due to a lack of understanding of economic theory and a desire to relate real world economics to that of the text book. The author says many economists, in a world of indivisibilities, complementarities and systems, persist in thinking in terms of one-dimensional, fragmented marginalism. Professor Nove, who is known for his writings on the Soviet economy, raises many points relevant to the East as well as the West. His work contributes to the economics of socialism, while also making the case for greater realism in economic theory in general.

The present volume of essays on industrial organization, which are based on conferences held at Nijenrode and Brussels, differs considerably from its predecessor. Even more than in the first volume the essays demonstrate the broad scope of industrial organization analysis. Besides the traditional topics such as economies of scale, monopoly and competition policy, there are essays on methodology, on stagflation, and on the relationship between industrial struc ture and international trade and trade policies. The latter topics are of growing importance. The issue of restructuring industries and the question of whether free trade or some measure of protection is more appropriate are topics of increasing relevance today (and will no doubt continue to be in future years as well). The problem of persistent inflation which other essays address is also of major concern. Apart from being broad in scope and venturing into new fields, this volume is also controversial. Its central feature is a debate about welfare aspects. Here, more than in pure analysis, economists tend to entertain different points of view. One of the participants in the Nijenrode conference, Professor John Blair, who died in December 1976 and whom we honour as having been an active promoter of this kind of meeting, wrote to the editors shortly before his death to say that the first volume had succeeded very well in acquainting the reader with the results of empirical investigations, notably on trends and levels of concentration.

This is a path-breaking book. Characteristically readable, controversial and full of insights, Nove identifies a workable socialist programme, achievable in the lifetime of a child born today, that avoids far-fetched or utopian assumptions. This text has been immensely influential in the West, and is available in translation in China, Hungary and the Soviet Union. Alec Nove begins by demonstrating why Marx's theories provide a misleading guide to the issues facing economists under any realistically conceivable socialism. He goes on to discuss the problems experinced by communist-ruled countries, especially the Soviet Union, and to suggest possible remedies and solutions. Nove also examines problems of transition, in the context of Western industrialised countries and the Third World. He concludes by outlining a possible efficienct and human socialism, and examines objections to these ideas from the Left and the Right.

Are resources allocated more efficiently through private ownership than through the public sector? The experiences of eleven newly privatised companies are examined to evaluate this hypothesis. With the Government's pro-privatization policies in place for over a decade, this is a prime time to evaluate theory versus reality.

Over the past decade economic policy in the UK and elsewhere has been guided by the belief that resources are used more efficiently in the private sector than under state ownership. Consequently, many formerly state-owned companies have been transferred to the private sector. After surveying the theoretical arguments for and against this hypothesis, this book examines the experience of eleven firms, including British Airways, Rolls-Royce and British Telecom. Various indicators are used to measure each firm's performance before and after privatisation to assess whether this policy has brought about improvements in efficiency. The first four chapters provide background material for the empirical work that follows. Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical arguments for and against the idea that private ownership will be more efficient than state control. Chapter 2 provides brief histories of the eleven organisations studied and chapter 3 discusses how their performance can be measured. Chapter 4 reviews the literature on the relative efficiency of public and private ownership. Chapter 5 considers the impact of privatisation on each of the eleven firms' labour and total factor productivity growth. Chapter 6 performs a similar analysis using two standard accounting ratios (value-added and the rate of profit). Chapter 7 assesses the impact of privatisation on technical efficiency using data envelopment analysis. In chapter 8 the impact of ownership on employment, wage levels and the distribution of business income is considered. The penultimate chapter discusses the restructuring that has followed each company's move into the private sector, and the final chapter summarises the results.

A study of the actors and institutions that shaped decision-making on privatization in the Russian oil industry between 1992 and 2006. The book analyses the origins of privatization as a policy on a macro, industry-wide level, as well as presenting three in-depth case studies of privatization on a company level.

First published in 1976, From Policy to Administration is not the conventional Festschrift written by many hands on many unrelated subjects- rather it is a tight collection of essays conceived and written around a unified theme. From one point of view, policy and administration are at two opposite ends of the governmental spectrum; but at the same time both are aspects of almost every single government activity and the essays in this book set out to reflect this apparent paradox. Dr Jones finds symptoms of it at the administrative heart of the policy making machine while Professor Friedrich looks at the nature of that machine and its relation to democratic forms. Four central essays by Professors Bernard Crick, Peter Self, John Mackintosh and Mr Sharpe, link policy making and administration to the controversies about participation, decentralisation, and devolution. Mr Foster considers the public corporation as a dynamic instrument concerned with the problem of efficiency. The book concludes with essays by Professors Mitchell and Griffith on the involvement of legal processes in the structure and functioning of policy and administration. The book does not attempt to cover all of William Robson’s interests. It is a mark of the versatility of his genius that no book could do that and remain unified. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of public administration and political studies.