EC5#Week 7

7 Owning contracts

Institutions, even governments, can evolve their form as they either bring in services or outsource them; this is significantly influenced by taxation. When outsourcing prevails, companies can specialise in picking up contracts and outsourcing the work, establishing apparently powerful market positions; any failures can be highly disruptive. Governments can engage with forms of public-private-partnership such as PFI (UK – private finance initiative). What institutional and legal arrangements within the economy would better avoid exploitation and disruption?