Privatization | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when a heavily regulated private company or industry becomes less regulated. Government functions and services may also be privatised (which may also be known as "franchising" or "out-sourcing"); in this case, private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services that had previously been the purview of state-run agencies. Some examples include revenue collection, law enforcement, water supply, and prison management. Another definition is that privatization is the sale of a state-owned enterprise or municipally owned corporation to private investors; in this case shares may be traded in the public market for the first time, or for the first time since an enterprise's previous nationalization. This type of privatization can include the demutualization of a mutual organization, cooperative, or public-private partnership in order to form a joint-stock company. Separately, privatization can refer to the purchase of all outstanding shares of a publicly traded company by private equity investors, which is more often called "going private". Before and after this process the company is privately owned, but after the buyout its shares are withdrawn from being traded at a public stock exchange. The term privatizing first appeared in English, with quotation marks, in the New York Times, in April 1923, in a translation of a German speech referring to the potential for German state railroads to be bought by American companies. In German, the word Privatisierung has been used since at least the 19th century. Ultimately, the word came to German through French from the Latin privatus. The term reprivatization, again translated directly from German (Reprivatisierung), was used frequently in the mid-1930s as The Economist reported on Nazi Germany's sale of nationalized banks back to public shareholders following the 1931 economic crisis.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (139)

Related courses (15)

Related lectures (92)

Related MOOCs (4)

HUM-434: China: the rebirth of a great power I

Approcher la Chine contemporaine par le biais des phénomènes qui émergent à l'international permet non seulement de s'intéresser à l'impact sur le reste du monde de cette Chine qui s'internationalise

ENV-367: Environmental and construction law

Ce cours donne aux étudiant-e-s les connaissances de base nécessaires pour comprendre les dimensions juridiques de leur activité professionnelle concernant l'aménagement du territoire et la protection

CS-119(c): Information, Computation, Communication

L'objectif de ce cours est d'introduire les étudiants à la pensée algorithmique, de les familiariser avec les fondamentaux de l'Informatique et de développer une première compétence en programmation (

Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming in C++

Le cours suivi propose une introduction aux concepts de base de la programmation orientée objet tels que : encapsulation et abstraction, classes/objets, attributs/méthodes, héritage, polymorphisme, ..

Urban Infrastructure Management

Learn the principles of managing urban infrastructure systems; complex socio-technical systems that provide basic services (energy, water, transport, etc.) to more than 50% of the world’s population.

Urban Infrastructure Management

Working with extreme urban density: Hong Kong. A prototype of mixed-use building in Hong Kong

Joana Varela, Wing-Chung Cheung

Urban sprawl, a solution to house fast-growing metropolitan populations, dilutes the substance of cities and generates extensive uniformly built fabrics lacking structural poles of attraction. Hong Ko

2008

Explores institutional reforms for urban mobility in African cities, focusing on the challenges, role of authorities, and constraints faced in transportation management.

Examines the evolution of urban transport in African cities, from public to private services.

Explores the significance of environmental law for engineers and the legal challenges they encounter in their professional activities.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR.

Neoliberalism, also neo-liberalism, is a term used to signify the late-20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent factor in the rise of conservative and right-libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them, it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.