Privatisation: Recent Experiences and Prospects in a World Without Borders

The world-wide slowdown in economic growth, which started in the early 1970s, immediately launched experts into a concerted effort to find explanations and devise appropriate remedial policies. Prominent among the explanations of the slowdown was the unprecedented expansion of state sectors. This eventually, in conjunction with numerous other ominous developments such as the ever-rising budget deficits, the relentless bureaucratisation of individual initiatives and the pressure to adjust to the increasingly competitive international environment, caused public opinion all over the free world to swing in favour of rolling back the state.