We can only hope. An obvious question here is when should the government -local or national- own a firm? As a general guide, Hart, Shleifer and Vishny ("The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4): 1127-61, November 1997) argue that the case for government provision of goods or services is generally stronger when non-contractible cost reductions have large deleterious effects on quality, when quality innovations are unimportant and when corruption in government procurement is a severe problem. It has been argued that the case for government production is strong in such services as the conduct of foreign policy, police and armed forces. The case can also be made reasonably persuasively for the case of prisons. The case for private sector provision is stronger when quality reducing cost reduction can be controlled through contract or competition, when quality innovations are important and when patronage and powerful unions are a severe problem inside the government.
According to this
piece at stuff.co.nz the City Council owns the following assets,
Christchurch City Holdings Ltd (CCHL) is the commercial and investment arm of the Christchurch City Council. CCHL manages the ratepayers' investment in these seven fully or partly-owned council-controlled trading organisations: Orion New Zealand Ltd – 89.3 per cent shareholding. Christchurch International Airport Ltd – 75 per cent. Lyttelton Port Company Ltd – 78.9 per cent. Christchurch City Networks Ltd (trading as Enable Networks) – 100 per cent. Red Bus Ltd – 100 per cent. City Care Ltd – 100 per cent. Selwyn Plantation Board Ltd – 39.3 per cent.
It's hard to see how any of these assets are in anyway like foreign policy, the police or the armed forces. It is difficult see how non-contractible cost reductions would have negative effects on quality and it seems likely that quality innovations are important in these areas, so (local) government ownership is not justified.
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