Monitoring Governmental Disposition of Assets: Fashioning Regulatory Substitutes for Market Controls

80 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 1999

See all articles by Harold J. Krent

Harold J. Krent

Chicago-Kent College of Law

Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 1999

Abstract

Each year the government sells or leases assets worth billions of dollars. The impact on the economy is staggering. FCC auctions to allocate rights to electromagnetic spectrum generated well over twenty billion dollars in the last three years. Proceeds from mineral leases, timber sales, and disposition of real estate from defaulting thrifts have generated another several billion dollars annually.

From the taxpayer's perspective, however, government disposition schemes have failed miserably. The government has donated valuable resources to preferred claimants, allocated scarce broadcast and oil rights resources by lottery, and sold both public land and rights to minerals beneath to private parties at a fraction of the market price. The government has also sold timber without any apparent cost-benefit justification, and awarded rights to use electromagnetic spectrum worth billions of dollars to communications giants at a substantial discount.

In the article, we analyze the different causes for regulatory failure -- historical, conceptual, and political -- and argue that reforms at both the congressional and administrative level are need to minimize the inefficiency and graft.

JEL Classification: H1

Suggested Citation

Krent, Harold J. and Zeppos, Nicholas S., Monitoring Governmental Disposition of Assets: Fashioning Regulatory Substitutes for Market Controls (June 1999). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=178548 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.178548

Harold J. Krent (Contact Author)

Chicago-Kent College of Law ( email )

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Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt University ( email )

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United States
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HOME PAGE: http://www.vanderbilt.edu

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