, Columnist
How Governments Lose Trillions Mismanaging Property
Public assets are worth more than countries owe in debt.
Inefficient landlord.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
In all the dire talk about public debt, far too little attention is being paid to public assets. Helping to right that balance is a new book, "The Public Wealth of Nations," by Dag Detter of Whetstone Solutions and Stefan Folster of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Governments across the world have an estimated $75 trillion worth of commercial assets -- roughly 50 percent more than the $54 trillion in global public debt -- and these assets are typically quite poorly managed, Detter and Folster show. In some cases, governments have actively tried to hide their value, often so that government officials can personally benefit from handing out favors.