Factors affecting transport privatization: An empirical analysis of the EU

Addressing the long-term sustainability challenge in the policymaking process requires close engagement of private firms—particularly in the green innovation area—along with other actors. Involvement of private firms in the implementation of privatization policies is encouraged by national governments, as it is believed that such engagement will help in producing more sustainable solutions. Transport is a key sustainability issue, where a sound privatization policy could positively affect the transport-related environmental efficiency and sustainability. In this context, the policy transfer process can provide a strong impetus for further growth of transport privatization. Little attention, however, in the literature and practice has been devoted to analyse factors affecting the policy transfer phenomenon in transport privatization policies. This paper, hence, aims to investigate the relationship between policy transfer and transport sustainability via privatization. The paper hypotheses that both economic and institutional determinants increase the effect of policy convergence. As the case study context, the EU is placed under the microscope, and a dyadic dataset on transport policies is analysed. The findings indicate that institutional and economic variables play a highly critical role for policy transfer in achieving transport sustainability in the EU.