Incentives: Private and Public

One of the points that I make in Health Economics as well as in Prin. of Microeconomics is that economic incentives in competitive markets result in similar outcomes regardless of the organization.  Hence in my Health Economics course, we look at for-profit and not-for-profit health organizations in competitive markets and see that similar types of economic policies (pricing) occur in each.  The New York Times has an interesting article on how government run firms are acting like private (capitalistic) firms in China when it comes to pollution reduction.  The firms owned and managed by the government are resisting government regulation to reduce some of the world's worst air pollution.