ABSTRACT
This chapter provides inferences from the UK experience in privatisation, highlighting the ways in which certain problems have been met and its several unresolved questions; and looks at the situation of developing countries in the context of each major point of inference. A strong argument has been advanced in the UK that the government’s control relationships with public enterprises have been so unsatisfactory — tending on undesirable interferences — that ‘the dead hand’ of Whitehall could only be removed through privatisation. The different techniques of pricing and offer of shares followed in the UK are worth a close study for adaption to local conditions. The problems posed by the limits to competition in practice in the privatised industries, prompting a large edifice of eagle-eyed public regulation in the UK, are a serious issue for developing countries to ponder. They will have more sectors to deal with, and perhaps with less experience and technical skills in regulation.
