Great Expectations

The 1980s and '90s have been a period of unprecedented microeconomic reform in Australia, in a bid to make the nation s enterprise environment more competitive. With the full implementation of the National Competition Policy, the pace of that reform is set to explode. In this timely work, John Quiggin critically examines the assumptions, the practice and the future of microeconomic reform and its place in the Australian economy. Is it unambiguously true that competition within the infrastructure benefits business and consumers as well as the infrastructure industry concerned? What are the assumptions upon which such great expectations have been placed, and have they held true in the experience of reform? Great Expectations places the prospect of microeconomic reform in its theoretical and historical context. It examines and evaluates: - transport deregulation - government business enterprises - financial deregulation - contracting out - tariffs and industry policy - privatisation - communications deregulation - private infrastructure At a time when Australia s economic basis and future conti