Summary of “PRIVATIZATION OF LEBANON’S PUBLIC ASSETS NO MIRACLE SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS” (Albert Kostanian, 2021)
Albert Kostanian, Senior Policy Fellow for Economics at the Issam Fares Institute (AUB), recently published a paper entitled “Privatization of Lebanon’s Public Assets: No Miracle Solution to the Crisis” in which he assesses the impact of privatizing some of the Publicly Held Assets (PHA) 1,2 on the population’s long term overall welfare.
Albert Kostanian, Senior Policy Fellow for Economics at the Issam Fares Institute (AUB), recently published a paper entitled “Privatization of Lebanon’s Public Assets: No Miracle Solution to the Crisis” in which he assesses the impact of privatizing some of the Publicly Held Assets (PHA) 1,2 on the population’s long term overall welfare.
The criteria used to assess the impact of privatizing PHAs on the population’s overall welfare are the following:
1- Competitiveness and efficiency that could result from the engagement of the private sector.
2- The public services or goods the citizens would benefit from after the privatization.
3- The impact the privatization could have on the Treasury.
Albert Kostanian finds that the privatization of PHAs is not currently a judicious solution for the financial crisis. By assessing the values of the selected PHAs, he estimates that the revenues which would be generated by the privatization on the short term are minimal compared to Lebanon’s aggregate losses.