논문

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical approach to the issue of the privatization of the local public enterprise in Korea. The theoretical approach done in this article basically takes a compromising approach between the traditional theory of public goods in Economics and the competitiveness of local public enterprise, particularly, focusing on the relative degree of publicness of the goods and services provided by the local public enterprise and of the competitiveness of local public enterprise as a company. In line with the theoretical approach this article suggests a policy implication such that the priority of the privatization of the local public enterprise should be given to the company with high in competitiveness and low in publicness.
This article also tried to apply the theoretical approach to the real Korean situation in a limited sense, mainly due to a lack of data and a rudimentary level of the approach done in this article. The result indicates that most of the local public enterprises in Korea are likely to be a target of the privatization. On the other hand, local public enterprises such as sewerage co., water co., and subway system are analyzed to remain in the public domain in the near future. Nevertheless, such companies are needed to privatize part of their functions to enhance both efficiency and equity.