Add to ORKGTheories of privatization or nationalization typically compare the economic or political efficiency of private and state ownership, either in general, or for a list of specific goods and services. They aim at defining, once and for all, what an optimal allocation of ownership should be, i.e. the desirable scope of government in production. They do not explain changes in state and private ownership boundaries, nor their timing. Accordingly, they can hardly account for the two “great reversals ” that shaped the past century, the post-WWII nationalizations being followed since the 1980s by a privatization wave. While the privatization movement has dramatically slowed down2 recently, even reverting again to nationalization in the wake of the cu...