Nowhere does there exist a greater concentration of expertise on privatization than in the United Kingdom. The privatization programme in the UK started before those of other countries, and has included government companies and services that are larger and more diverse than anywhere else.

Indeed, British merchant banks, marketing agencies, policy analysts, and other institutions now have so much knowledge about how to make privatization work that their advice is one of UK's most thriving export industries! The whole world, it seems - whatever the prevailing political colour - wants to know how to reap the benefits of privatization.

It was to assemble the best of this expertise that in July 1987 the Adam Smith Institute sponsored the first London Conference on Privatization, from which most of the papers in the report derive. Over 100 finance ministers, businesspeople, and other delegates from all over the world came to learn for themselves something of the mechanics of privatization.

Read the whole report here.