Study On Governmental Responsibility During The Privatization Of The Urban Public Transportation

From the end of 1970s, the government has encountered criticism from the public of their inefficiency of the supplying of public goods and service. In order to change the situation, they began the privatization. During the same period, China implemented it policy of its reform and opening to the outside world, which made the transition from original highly centralized economy planning system to socialist market economy system. However, urban pubic transportation, as a part of the urban public utility, have been in an absolute monopoly state over a long period of time. At the middle of the 1990s, the government finance can not meet the deficit of the public transportation, so the traditional way of operation was challenged. Urban pubic transportation, which belongs to the quasi-public goods, became one of the objects of the privatization in China. Government plays a dual role in privatization, both as the client and the agent. Once the government ignored its own responsibility, a series of problems would be raised. In order to foster an orderly and sound development of the reform, what and how should the government take the responsibility is the focus of the paper.The thesis includes three parts. The first part is introduction of relevant concepts, and the necessity of the privatization of urban public transportation and the responsibility of the government is analyzed. The second part is the analysis of the contradiction in the reform, and suggested the governmental responsibility is indispensable. The third part is a case study. Take the case of privatization of urban public transportation in Shanghai, this part illustrated that the government should take the responsibilities, such as the moral responsibility, the legal responsibility, the management responsibility, and the supervision responsibility, and specified the how to realize these responsibilities.